


If Wishes Were Fishes

by taizi



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012)
Genre: 2k12, Alternate Universe - Human, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-07
Updated: 2015-03-05
Packaged: 2018-02-20 06:03:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 28,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2417684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taizi/pseuds/taizi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raph, Leo and Donnie are quadruplets whose baby brother died the day they were born. When Raphael brings home a new friend with wide blue eyes, a face full of freckles, and a brown belt in karate, the whole family gets a taste of what it might have been like had Michelangelo survived.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

_Prologue._

Raphael zipped up his sweatshirt on his way into the dojo, leaning through the open rice paper doors and calling, "Sensei?" It was only a moment before his father emerged from his rooms, arms folded in the sleeves of his favorite maroon robes, and Raph hurried to say, "Sensei, can I borrow the nunchucks?"

Master Yoshi raised an eyebrow at the middle child, amusement glinting in the warm brown of his eyes. "What's this? Unless I am mistaken, you have no patience for the  _nunchaku_. Neither do your brothers."

"Well, it's not for me. Or them." Raph rubbed the back of his neck. "You know how I've been working at the rec center?"

"Your community service, yes."

Sensing a paperthin sheet of ice to his father's tone at that little reminder, Raph blurted, "Well there's this kid, he takes a karate class there three times a week. And he's  _awesome_ , sensei, he's my age and he's just a skip away from his black belt. We spar together sometimes and if he wasn't so scrawny he could probably take me."

"Oh? For you to admit as much, he must really be something."

"Well, I mean, he's a complete goofball, but put him on a training mat and all that wacky energy gets channeled into martial arts. His form needs some work, but I think that's just 'cause he's bounced around so much." His father invited him to sit with him on the tatami mat, and Raphael promptly folded his legs into a proper kneel. Master Yoshi was invested in his tale at the very least, and while Raph wasn't used to such expansive storytelling, the interested look on Yoshi's face gave him all the courage he needed to continue. "He's in foster care. He's gone back and forth from New York to Jersey about half a dozen times, so he's had like three different teachers- "

"He must have had to work very hard," Yoshi said quietly, and Raph nodded. "New York has laws against the ownership of  _nunchaku,_ I believe. Yet he managed to pursue weapons training?"

"Well, the last time he lived in Jersey was a few years ago, and he lived a few hours downstate, so he had a different class. The sensei he had then gave him a practice set, and taught him for about six months before he moved again."

"And all this moving around is...?"

Raph folded his hands kind of too tight, so he wouldn't say something stupid. "It, uh. He only jokes about it, but I think he's had really rough luck. Bad places, bad people."

He was staring hard at his knees when he felt his father's hand on his shoulder. "I sometimes forget how compassionate you are, Raphael," the man said fondly, and Raph felt his ears burn. Master Yoshi chuckled and, after an affectionate tap against Raph's cheek, drew his hand away. "I must say, from what I've heard of him- and what I've seen of his influence on you so far- this boy seems a much better friend than your previous ones have been."  _The ones who got you arrested,_ he didn't feel the need to add, and Raph let go of a breath he was holding. "Is he the friend you asked me yesterday for permission to invite over this afternoon?"

"Yeah. He'll be here soon, I just- the nunchucks?"

After a long moment, Master Yoshi rose, and Raph didn't; staring hopefully after his father as he strode to the cabinet on the far side of the dojo. "I will need to see that he's as skilled as you say. These are weapons, not a toy," the man warned, as he withdrew the compact red and gold chainsticks. Raph climbed to his feet, grinning.

"That's okay by me. He'll probably have his practice set on him, anyway, since I told him we had a dojo. You'll see what I mean. Thanks, dad."

He was on his way out the door when his father called, "What is the boy's name?"

The question was inevitable, obviously, but Raph still felt blindsided. He steeled himself with a hand braced on the door, then turned to face Master Yoshi because it was the respectful thing.

"Michael."

Prepared for the shadow of grief that entered his father's eyes, and burned like coals at the bottom of his own heart, but not ready for it.  _Never_ ready for it.

Trying a smile, Raph added, "But I call him Mikey."


	2. Chapter 1

"Holy wow, this place is  _huge._ You didn't tell me you lived in a Bed and Breakfast!"

"It's not a Bed and Breakfast, you dork. Hurry up and get inside, I have a surprise for ya."

"Aww, you shouldn't have. Unless it's pizza. Hey, is it pizza? 'Cause I could eat."

"Color me surprised."

Yoshi could hear them coming from down the hall, given the more traditional rice paper walls of the dojo, and smiled at the sound of his middle son's laughter. Too often his children were lost in silence or solitude, only coming together with joy in their daily training exercises. It was wonderful to see his more troubled child reaching out, even if he was reaching out to a stranger.

When the door slid open, Raphael was still grinning and Yoshi got his first look at the famous Mikey.

He was a slight thing- dressed simply in faded jeans and a slim hoodie- standing whole inches shorter than Yoshi's son, his mop of curly hair only a shade or two lighter than Raphael's cropped blond. His gaze swept eagerly around the dojo, and Yoshi watched it catch on the practice mat like sticky fingers.

"Mikey, this is my dad, Master Yoshi."

"Hi, sir," the boy said, polite for all the mirth in those round blue eyes. Raphael gave his arm a nudge and he remembered himself with a start, bowing promptly at the waist. When he straightened, there was a mile-wide smile stretched in a comfortable way across his freckled face. "Heh, sorry. It's nice to meet you!"

"And you as well," Yoshi said kindly, amused by the boy who seemed to live in his own pocket world of noise and color. "Raphael tells me you've earned up to your brown belt in karate. That's very impressive."

Mikey rocked back on his heels, looking pleased. "Thanks! But I've been doing karate since forever basically, so it's not that big a deal."

Something crossed like a cloud over Raphael's face at Mikey's easy dismissal, and he reached over to thump him on the head. "It is a big deal, moron. Now show sensei your chucks."

The smaller of the two agreeably pulled the practice weapons from his hoodie pocket and held them out as Yoshi approached. They were heavier than the man expected, connected by a ball-bearing swivel chain. After so many years, the thin padding had come almost completely apart, and the dearly-loved things were being held together by little more than duct tape and sentiment.

 _It is a shame,_  Yoshi thought with a pang of sympathy for the bright child, who was looking more and more ashamed at the state of his weapons with each second Yoshi continued to examine them,  _that they are all he has. These were not meant to last as long as they have._

Over Mikey's head, he met Raphael's eyes and inclined his head. Raphael's returning smirk didn't have quite the hard edge it usually did, the sharp green of his eyes gone leaflike and soft.

"It's been a long time since I've had the honor of meeting a child with as much potential as my three sons," Yoshi said with warmth, handing the dear things back and watching Mikey's eyes dart up in surprise. It was clear the boy expected scorn instead of praise, even as his fingers curled tightly around the broken wood and foam. "I would like to sit in while you and Raphael spar."

"Uh- well, yeah, sure." Mikey glanced at Raphael, confused. "Are we sparring?"

"Eh, might as well since we're here already." Raphael shrugged casually out of his jacket and rotated one shoulder, grin gone shark-like. "Unless you're scared I'll wipe the floor with ya again."

"You say 'again' like it's happened before," Mikey shot back, moving with him to opposite ends of the firm mat. His nunchucks were in 'ready' position, and Raphael raised an eyebrow- then strode away to pluck a pair of  _sai_ from the wall. The metal gleamed with good care, the handles wrapped painstakingly by Raphael himself in nylon cord, and Mikey frowned. "Woah, hey- come on, Raph, that's not fair."

"What are you talking about?" Raph snapped, pointing one of the prong-shaped batons at him. "You got a weapon, I get a weapon."

"Umm, hello?" The child held his nunchucks up by one stick and let the other dangle freely from the chain. "These guys wouldn't stand up to a hit from those dumb fork things! And they're all I got!"

"Then maybe you should stop yappin' and grab a pair of  _real_ chucks so we can get this show on the road."

And as Mikey blinked at him, Yoshi drew the  _nunchaku_ from his inner pocket and strode forward to place them in the boy's disbelieving hand.

There was nothing quite like the joy of a child, and Mikey's face  _shone_ with it under Yoshi's careful instruction _._ After several long minutes for Mikey to get used to the speed and pull of a much heavier weapon than he was accustomed, Yoshi allowed the boys to begin- though he remained close and kept a sharp eye. Because even without blades or sharp edges, theirs were still dangerous weapons; and a student nearing his black belt was still a student who required an immediate instructor nearby.

And the longer Yoshi watched, the more he saw.

Mikey's control with the  _nunchaku_ was impressive, but his concentration left much to be desired. The child was a natural spring of potential, and Yoshi could only imagine what he might have been had he had proper and consistent teaching from day one.

It was over when Mikey became more interested in a game of cat and mouse, goading Raphael into a chase with near-hits and clever misses; after that, the two were sprinting around the dojo like children in a matter of minutes. Yoshi stepped forward with a sharp,  _"Yame,"_ just as Raphael finally managed to pin Mikey to the tatami mat.

Perpetually undaunted, Mikey started to laugh.

"That was  _epic!"_ he crowed, waving the nunchucks over his head like they were a victory flag. "Man, there's nothin' like the real thing!" Raphael rolled his eyes and hauled him to his feet. The boy was still grinning ear to ear as he handed back the chainsticks, flushed and thrilled. "Thank you, Master Yoshi. And you too, Raph! Best surprise ever."

As stern as Yoshi might have been with one of his sons goofing off during training, it was somehow difficult to summon the scolding words in face of the bright-faced, beaming child. The lack of focus wasn't entirely Mikey's fault- his education had suffered, and from what Raphael had shared with him earlier, Yoshi suspected Mikey's childhood was not as sunny as his smile might lead others to believe.

And the boy had cared for a pair of practice nunchucks for years after anyone else would have thrown them away. That  _mattered_ in a way that only made sense to the heart.

"You're always welcome in our home, Michael. My son has found a good friend in you." As Mikey giggled and Raphael turned an unflattering shade of puce, Yoshi continued, "And if you would ever care for more instruction in the art of  _nunchaku,_ I am somewhat of a master."

"Wha- seriously? Yes! Totally!  _Yes!"_

"Come to morning practice," Raphael said dryly, "see if you're still happy-dancey about it then."

* * *

A far cry from the usual atmosphere, dinner that night was a  _lively_  affair.

The boys- all four of them, as Leonardo and Donatello were both hunted down and dragged from their respective dens- took their pizza to the living room and settled around the entertainment center together. Donatello connected his laptop to the television with an HDMI cable, grinning while Mikey argued passionately with Leonardo about which was the better show:  _Space Heroes,_ or

"Super Robo Mecha Force Five, dude! It's on Youtube- come on, just one episode! I promise you guys'll love it."

For the first time that Yoshi could remember, Raphael wasn't jealously guarding his new friend from Leonardo, the way he guarded most things he was afraid of losing; this time he seemed to delight in sharing, and smiled with a warmth Yoshi almost didn't recognize when Leonardo leaned over to ruffle Mikey's hair.

"Oh, heck no," Raphael interjected when Donatello queued up a playlist and the intro started on the plasma. "This looks  _terrible."_

"Terribly  _awesome!"_

 _Michael is certainly a remarkable child,_ the father thought, as he left them to their noise and laughter. Wondering as he went how any family could find it in their hearts to surrender him.


	3. Chapter 2

When the phone rang the first time, at a little after ten o'clock in the morning, it was Raph.

_"Hey, Leo, it's me. Have you heard from Mikey?"_

Leo frowned, even though no one was around to see, and said, "No, I haven't. Is something wrong?"

_"He has karate today but the instructor hasn't seen 'im. I dunno, maybe it's nothing. But keep an ear out?"_

"Yeah, of course."

Bringing the cordless phone with him, Leonardo crossed the room to the recliner he'd abandoned and sat down again. A  _Space Heroes_ marathon was well underway, but Leo muted it with a flick of the remote, mind racing.

Should he be worried? Mikey loved his karate class, he wouldn't just wander off.

"But it's Mikey," he reasoned aloud, drumming his fingers on the armrest. "He wanders off  _here."_

 _And he's a brown belt,_ his mind supplied helpfully.  _He can take care of himself._

Mikey wasn't  _his_ the way Raph and Donnie were. Mikey was just a friend, a  _good_ friend, and Leo didn't have any right or reason to feel responsible for him.

So he tried to ignore the  _danger, family, danger_ sirens wailing in the back of his mind for the first time in forever- because Mikey wasn't family, he was just a good friend.

Leo turned the television volume back up.

Sensei was out having tea with an old friend, Donnie was practically camped at Barnes & Noble waiting for the  _National Geographic_ world atlas he'd preordered, and Rapael was finally finishing his community service at the rec center, a free man by the end of the day.

So Leo had the whole compound to himself- which should have been a dream come true for any fifteen year old big brother of two. But with his training, exercises, meditation and chores all done, Leo was actually... not  _lonely,_ definitely not, no way. Bored.

Even the amazing adventures of Captain Ryan weren't doing much for him- given, he'd seen every episode half a dozen times, but still. Since when did the house start feeling  _too_ quiet and  _too_ empty when he was home alone?

 _Since about two weeks ago,_ he realized a second later,  _when I finally got used to having Mikey around._

The phone rang again, about an hour after the first time, and Leo answered on the second ring.

"Hello?"

" _Leo?"_

He uncurled his legs and sat up straight. "Mikey, hey. What's up?"

_"Oh, y'know. Same ol'. Just, um... I need a little help."_

Leo was already on his feet, leaving the T.V. on and his Cheetos and canned tea wherever they happened to fall. He had a  _really_ bad feeling he shouldn't have ignored that bad feeling earlier.

"Are you hurt?"  _Please say no._

_"Yeah, but it's just my ankle, it's all- I dunno, dude. I can't walk any farther, it hurts like crazy."_

"What happened, Mikey?" He was tugging on his left sneaker with one hand, his other gripping the phone too tight. When he didn't receive an answer right away, Leonardo infused every ounce of authority he knew he had as oldest brother in his stern, "Mikey."

And it worked.

_"There was a thing. A fight, sort of. A few guys."_

"What do you- What guys? Are they still there?"

 _"No, they're gone. And I'm in a pretty busy spot now, so I don't think they'll come back. Don't be mad, Leo,"_ Mikey added meekly.  _"They were breaking in to somebody's car."_

"We're discussing that later. Tell me where you are. And  _stay there."_

After receiving Mikey's solemn vow he wouldn't move an inch, Leo practically flew into the carport and punched the button to open the second garage door. There was a row of dirtbikes to one side of the furthermost car, and Leo fought his way through countless cardboard boxes of junk to yank the blue one out by the handlebar.

The state of New Jersey didn't require a driver's license for dirt bikes or ATVs, just a minimum age of fourteen and a safety course certificate. So the Hamatos' resident genius-engineer-wizard had modified their bikes in his spare time to make them street legal- adding headlights, tail-lights, brake signals, rearview mirrors, horns, passenger pegs, who knew what else.

It was probably the coolest thing Donnie had ever done for his brothers, and Leonardo was never more grateful for it than he was now.

 _I should have been worried,_ Leo thought with self-contempt that burned.  _I'm supposed to look out for them, it's my only job._

And he didn't hear the little voice, if it was there, reminding him that Mikey wasn't his. He was tearing through town in such a breakneck way that his father would have confiscated all three bikes for a  _month_ had he any idea, and Leo couldn't hear anything but his own voice in his head, amplified five times larger than life:

_Way to go, Leo._

He had one job, and he couldn't seem to get it right. Donnie never left his room, Raph was constantly skirting trouble with the law, Mikey was  _hurt._

A horn blared when he merged over sharply, but Leo didn't hear that, either. He pulled into the parking lane more carefully, killing the engine and kicking down the stand. Tossing his helmet to one side, Leo rushed to the round blue eyes that reached up for his.

"Hi," Mikey said shyly from his seat on the curb. His left leg was stretched out gingerly, the opposite knee hugged to his chest. "Thanks for coming. And, sorry. I couldn't think who else to- "

"Hush," Leo said, kneeling in front of him and touching the side of Mikey's face gently. "Are you hurt anywhere besides your ankle?" Mikey shook his head promptly- despite the light coloration of bruises already forming across his cheekbone that spoke another truth- and Leo sighed. "Okay. Let's get home. If it's a break, you're going to the hospital, no objections."

Mikey nodded, and Leo helped him up and over to the bike; swearing to himself all the while that he'd never mess up this badly ever again.

* * *

"No hospital?" Mikey asked hopefully when Leo was finished wrapping his ankle.

"No hospital."

It wasn't a break, but sprains could sometimes be worse- Mikey would definitely be off his feet for a couple days. From the way he was fidgeting after being confined to the couch for less than ten minutes so far, keeping him there for two days would be a Herculean task.

But Leonardo was more than up for the challenge.

He didn't hesitate in handing Mikey the house phone. "Call your foster parents and ask if you can spend the weekend here." Mikey brightened at the idea.

"They won't mind," he insisted cheerfully, dialing the number quickly as Leo resumed carefully icing the swollen skin through the wraps. "They like when I'm out of the house."

"They shouldn't," Leo said for no one to hear, as Mikey greeted his foster dad on the phone. The call lasted maybe a minute, and the little blond was beaming when he passed back the phone. Under the direct light of such a smile, Leo was compelled to smile back. "I take it they said yes?"

"Sure did! Oh, man, this weekend is gonna be  _bangin'!_  We can- "

"You," Leo said, pointing at him, "can lay on the couch and keep your foot propped up. That's about it."

The other boy looked offended and betrayed.  _"What?_ I dunwanna just lay here! That's not fair!"

"If you think Raph, Donnie or sensei will tell you any different when they get here and see you, you're wrong." When Mikey continued to look mutinous, Leo leaned over and put a hand on his hair. It wasn't his place to do this for Mikey, but for whatever reason, he  _had_ to- as much as he would have if it were one of his little brothers. "I've had a sprain like this before, Mikey. After these next two days you should be okay to walk on it, but only if you take it easy- and let us take care of you the right way."

Mikey gave in a moment later, the way Leo knew he would, plucking at the sleeve of his hoodie because he didn't know how to be important to someone. Leo brushed the bangs out of his face and ached for him.

"Fine. But two days is gonna be  _forever."_

"It won't be so bad."

_Forever would be better._


	4. Chapter 3

Waking up a little past noon, Donatello was drawn toward the kitchen by the sounds of a heated argument and Leonardo's quiet laugh. When he stepped through the short curtains hanging in the doorway, it was to find Leo grinning across the island table, and Mikey- the faint yellow and purple of week old bruises still an ugly patchwork under one eye- with one hand on his hip and the other pointing a finger into Raph's smug face.

"For the last time,  _yes!_ Why are you such a jerk?"

"I just don't see it, Mikey."

"My birthday is literally the same day as yours!"

"There's  _no way_ you're our age. You're too scrawny."

"How does he make friends?" Donnie asked Leo on his way to the coffee maker, and heard his brother's smile when he replied.

"How does he keep them is the real question."

Mikey was in that thin orange sweatshirt Donatello had never seen him go without despite the muggy summer heat, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and the front only zipped halfway. The tanktop under it and cut off shorts made more sense- the fact that he showed up barefoot, not as much.

Plenty of things about Mikey were completely nonsensical, and sometimes it really got under Donnie's skin. Things were  _supposed_  to make sense. From a young age, Don had thrown himself into science and mechanics, the study of why things were the way they were and how they worked.

It was his way of coping with the missing pain.

When they were really little, they didn't know what it was. They would go to their father, usually together, crying because sometimes they  _hurt_ in a way they couldn't explain, not in their stomachs like when they were sick but in their hearts. It wasn't until they were about six that they finally started to understand the quiet explanation Master Yoshi always gave them, that they had a baby brother who went to sleep on the day they were born and didn't wake up.

_"Your hearts hurt because you love him very much. Maybe as you get older, the pain will ease."_

But since the pain meant loving him, they clung to it. And while his brothers found outlets of their own, martial arts and vandalism respectively, Donnie turned to books.

At first he wanted to understand why the missing pain was sometimes crippling in its intensity, and other days so gossamer he had to reach and feel for it in the corners. The only answers readily available were objective, nothing in the way of substantial evidence that any such connection even existed between twins and multiples. Exhaustive research left him with no answers and two dozen new questions. So he reached out curiously, past sociology into biology, and then from there he took a hard left into earth science and chemistry. At some point when he was about eleven years old, cracking open his new book on college physics, he decided he would study until he understood  _everything._

Everything but Mikey, apparently. Who put jellybeans on pizza and insisted squirrels were  _not_  what they seemed.

"Okay, you know what Raph, I'm bringing proof next time I come over, because- wait, 'our age'? No  _way,_ are you guys triplets?"

Instantly, Donatello's stomach gave a vicious lurch. He slid the coffee pot back down on its small burner, feeling sick, and promptly abandoned the steaming mug he'd just poured. A quick glance at Mikey found their friend twisting the hem of his sweatshirt and looking anxiously between each of their faces.

"I- I didn't mean to- "

"It's okay," Leonardo said gently, way before Donnie felt like he'd be able to speak. "You're right, we share the same birthday. But we're not triplets."

Mikey didn't look any less confused, but he said, "Okay. Sorry for asking."

"Dork. You didn't do anythin' wrong. Might as well tell ya so it doesn't come up again." Ignoring Mikey's unhappy expression, Raph continued, "We're quadruplets."

"But our youngest brother was born small and sick," Leonardo explained, the same way he'd had to a hundred times before. "He didn't make it."

Donatello could see it when sympathy bled into Mikey's face, and suddenly desperately didn't want to hear what they'd always heard from ignorant strangers who thought they understood.  _Couldn't_ hear it, not from Mikey.

"Look, before you say it's  _stupid_ for us to miss someone we've never met- "

"Dude, are you kidding? Why would I ever say that?"

When he looked at Donnie he looked  _right_ at him, with understanding and something else- something sharp- in the wide blue of his eyes. Something that beat the missing pain away, so easy, and compelled Donatello for the first time in fifteen years to blurt what was always  _constantly_  on the back of his mind.

"I was right next to him."

Leo and Raph's heads snapped up, staring at him in some strange mix of alarm and misery. But he plowed ahead because he  _had_ to now, or the weight of the words might kill him.

"Sometimes I can still feel him. I miss him so much," Donnie whispered, "all the time."

It seemed like two seconds later Mikey was diving into his arms. So tiny, barely as tall as his shoulder- it was the easiest thing in the world for Don to wrap the kid up as tight as he could. And Mikey seemed perfectly okay with being half-suffocated, fingers curled into Donnie's shirt.

"Y'know- it's not the same, but- I miss my family every single day, even though I never knew 'em. And they didn't even want me.  _I'm_ stupid." Donatello could feel it under his chin when Mikey moved to look up at him. "You're not."

The missing pain was  _burning_  in an unfamiliar way, and he thought maybe the sting of it was why he started seeing tears.

It couldn't have had anything to do with the way Mikey fit in his arms like he belonged there. Or the fleeting thought he'd caught whispering by of  _Is this what being a big brother would have felt like?_

Raph and Leo had to get their hands on him the moment he let Mikey go, touching his shoulders and pushing back his hair, wordlessly communicating everything they didn't know how to say out loud. Mikey tried to slip away at that point, skateboard tucked under his arm; but Raph reached out and snagged him by the hood before he could make his escape.

"You can't bail at the first sign of family drama," the older blond told him sternly, reeling their friend back like a caught fish and wrapping an arm around his thin shoulders. "You're stuck with us."

"No, I just figured you'd want to- "

"Decide what you want from Mr. Murakami's," Leo said over him, handing over the takeout menu. "I'm gonna call in our order."

"Are you sure it's- "

"Mikey?" Donnie said gently. The freckled boy glanced at him, eyes round in their uncertainty, and Donnie wondered how anyone could be so perceptive one minute and so clueless the next.

Then wondered if it was because Mikey had spent his whole life understanding people- the way Donnie spent his whole life understanding the things in books- and maybe never got understood in return.

"Go for the gyoza. It's our favorite."

* * *

It was dark enough outside by the time Mikey started to leave that Yoshi asked he call his foster mother first. Mikey made a face but obediently took the cordless house phone when Leo passed it over. The call was brief and practically one-sided, and Mikey was quick to say goodbye.

"She was already out, so she'll be by to get me in a couple minutes," he said, and Donnie couldn't have been the only one in his family to notice the way the Mikey's smile had tapered.

Master Yoshi saw him off in the foyer with a gentle hand on Mikey's curly hair, while Donnie and his brothers went outside to wait with him on the front patio. Fireflies dotted their yard lazily, and the relative silence they sat in together was comfortable; only broken by the SUV that pulled up to the gate and honked once.

"See you guys," Mikey said with a little wave, starting down the walk at a trot.

Donnie took an involuntary step after him- knew without looking back that Raph's shoulders were squared and tense, and Leo's cool blue eyes were locked without blinking on the silver Explorer- because it never felt right watching Mikey leave.

"Mikey, wait," he called, and Mikey turned around; swinging his skateboard by a wheel, barefoot on the flagstone pavers. At home in a way he shouldn't have been. Should always be.

"Yeah, D?"

"About earlier," Donnie said urgently, because it felt like the most important thing in the world. "You're  _not_ stupid. Okay?"

Mikey blinked, ignoring the second, impatient honk from behind him. And though it took a minute, the shy smile that bloomed across his face was more than worth the wait.

"I think you'd be a great big brother, Donnie."

Watching the truck pull away, Donatello thought,  _Me too._


	5. Chapter 4

Mikey had a backpack at his feet, and a bright smile on his face.

"I've called the three of you out here to make an announcement," he told them importantly.

"Here" was the city park; a sprawling, sparsely wooded lot of land across the street from the rec center and only several blocks away from Mikey's house. As dark as the sky was with heavy gray clouds, and as cold as it was for an evening in late June, it was no surprise the place was empty besides the four of them.

"This better be good," Raph griped mostly just for show, leaning against the wrought iron gate, while Donatello took a seat in the grass and Leo smiled indulgently. It wasn't the first time they'd catered to Mikey's whims, and it wouldn't be the last.

"Well, here we are. What's the big news?"

Mikey hopped up onto the marble lip of the park fountain's reflective pool, put his hands on his hips, and said grandly, "I'm running away."

Raph stood up straight, and in his peripheral vision Leonardo's shoulders went stiff. Donnie, meanwhile, raised an eyebrow and said, "Come again?"

"You heard me!"

Eyes darting to the backpack on the ground, Raph saw it in a new light; and wondered if he was alone in the cool, creeping tendrils of dread that threaded through his ribcage like fingers.

"You can't be  _serious_ , though. You'd have no where to go! Not to mention no way to support yourself- " Donnie started to preach, loud and proud on his soapbox. Leo cut him off with a sharp gesture and a narrow-eyed stare. Raph hoped he was trying to silently communicate exactly how much Don should  _shut up_ for right now, because Mikey  _was_ serious.

"I have plenty of friends in the city," he said like it was obvious, rocking back and forth on his heels. The edge of the fountain was slick and Chuck Taylors weren't exactly famous for their tread, but that small concern was whole worlds away. "I have places I could go."

"Just, hold on a minute," Leonardo said, sounding like he was still desperately trying to get a grasp on the situation. "Mikey, what is this all of a sudden? Three days ago everything was fine, and now the next time we see you- "

"It's not  _that_ sudden," Mikey interrupted. He shoved his hands in his hoodie pockets, no longer making any kind of eye contact. "You do know I've been an orphan  _forever,_ right? I've been saving up for like three years now. It's not like I just came up with the idea."

The incredulous scowl on Donatello's face fell away like lightning, and Leonardo wavered, probably on the threshold of actually physically grabbing Mikey and shaking sense into him. All he did, though, was clench his hands into fists at his sides and stare up at Mikey with blue eyes that cut through the dark better than he really knew.

"Have you been thinking this a long time, then?"

"Yes. No. Not- not lately, not since I met you guys." He rubbed a hand across his face and hopped down. "That's why I called you, cause you're my best friends and you should hear it from me, you know?"

"Even though you  _knew_ we'd try to stop you," Donnie said quietly, eyes laser-like, and Mikey shrugged one shoulder.

"'Course I did. If there's one constant in the world, it's you guys being stupid stubborn about stuff."

"About  _you,_ " Raph corrected dangerously, striding over to meet him. "Enough, alright? Will you just tell us what the heck is going on? You call us out here outta the wild blue just to tell us you're leavin' and "seeya 'round"? That doesn't make any kinda sense, kid."

"Unless you didn't just  _know_ we'd try to stop you, you were  _hoping_ we would," Leonardo guessed a second later. Mikey hunched his shoulders, arms wrapping tight around his center; a perfect bullseye. "So that's it. You want us to stop you."

Throwing his hands up incredulously, Raphael snapped, "Then why are you even _\- "_

"Mrs. Campbell didn't want a boy!"

Raph fell back, stunned, and Mikey met his eyes squarely for all of a second, looking miserable, and pushed into a corner, and  _hurt_.

"She wanted a little  _girl,_ Raph. But since I have blond hair and blue eyes, she  _settled_ for me. She doesn't like my karate or my stray cats or when I get my clothes dirty, and she got so mad when I came home with those bruises. She doesn't  _like_ me, no matter how much money she spends on me, and Mr. Campbell isn't home enough to  _care."_

 _I hate them,_ Raphael thought with perfect clarity, and a loathing that should have surprised him.  _Those people don't deserve him, why does he always get the_ worst people?

But that train of thought derailed almost immediately because Mikey was blinking through tears, and wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his orange hoodie. Donnie was there in a heartbeat, taking Mikey's free hand in both of his, and Raph was similarly compelled at a molecular level to step closer and wrap an arm around Mikey's shoulders.

"What does that mean, Mikey?" Leo asked from Raphael's immediate right. He sounded like he had connected the dots already, but he had to be  _sure_. "Why does that have you rehatching all these old plans, huh?"

Donnie's eyes were huge and almost red in the dim glow of the fairy lights strung up overhead, effectively glued to their friend's face. "It can't be bad enough you'd want to leave us, can it?"

And Mikey curled up like a pill bug, crying in such a quiet way Raph either had to hit something or hug him right. Mikey fit tucked under his chin like they were two pieces of the same set, and Raph squeezed him as tight as he dared.

"You're scarin' us, bro," he said softly. "Can you imagine all the awful stuff we're picturin' right now? Just tell us what's really goin' on and we'll fix it."

Rain started to fall, light and steady, and thunder rolled low a few seconds later. But Raph didn't move, and his brothers didn't either; and they  _wouldn't_ , they'd stay there for as long as it took Mikey to tell them-

"Mrs. Campbell is gonna have a baby. She found out yesterday. And then she won't want me anymore, and they'll send me back.  _Again_." He turned to hide in Raph's shoulder, wiping his face again with his sleeve and sobbing, "I just dunwanna do this anymore."

* * *

When they made it back to the estate, it was well past dinnertime and they were all dripping wet. Raph peeled his jacket off at the door and kicked off his shoes, gesturing for Mikey to do the same.

"I'm gonna get in trouble for not going home," Mikey mumbled, struggling out of his soaked hoodie. Raphael would have felt bad for that, but Mikey couldn't be bullied- if he thought he should go back to the Campbells then he would. Just the fact that he was there with them was evidence enough that he wanted to be.

And those people made him cry.

So Raph said, "Screw 'em. You are home."

Mikey got sent off to shower with an armful of Donnie's smallest pajamas. The rest of them went to their respective rooms and changed, and then Raph took a walk down to the laundry room with their wet stuff bundled in his arms and tossed all of it in the dryer. He set the dial to delicate after a moment's hesitation and a long look through the round door at Mikey's old, well-loved hoodie, and then joined his brothers in the kitchen- where they all sat around the table and looked exhausted at each other.

"Mikey's been abandoned enough to know the signs," Raph said, half-muffled by his hands where they propped his face up. "He's been yanked around all his life and he's  _sick_ of it."

"If he makes this decision, he'll throw his whole heart and soul into it," Leo said, voice as sharp as the fine steel of his swords. "He doesn't want to, but if he thinks he  _has_  to, he'll really disappear."

"He can't," Donatello shot back, too loud in the quiet of the room. "He  _can't_."

Leonardo covered Don's hand with one of his, and cast a look at Raphael that settled on his shoulders like a blanket. There were only a few times in Raph's life that he could remember the three of them being so strongly agreed on something, and his heart slowed its wild jumping at the resolve in Leo's eyes.

"He won't."

* * *

"You guys look happy," Mikey said when he saw their grave faces. He looked whole worlds more cheerful than he had an hour ago; probably because he'd been given time to put his game-face back on. Raph rolled his eyes- the kid didn't fool him for a second- and Donnie beckoned him to the table. "Oh, yeah, just um- where's my hoodie?"

"It's in the dryer," Raph replied, and was wholly unprepared for the look of sheer panic that sprinted across his friend's face.

"No, it- it doesn't go in the dryer. Can I go get it? Where's the laundry room again? Actually, I might need a map."

Leo crossed the room and put a hand on Mikey's shoulder on his way past him through the door.

"I'll get it."

"I thought you'd want it dry right away," Raphael said, frowning. "I didn't mean to- "

"Nah, it's okay! I shoulda told you it only air-dries." He rubbed the back of his head, looking sheepish, and took the chair next to him. "So... I'm in trouble, huh?"

"No more than usual." Raphael leaned his elbows on the table and gave Mikey a hard look. "I told you we were going help you fix it, didn't I? I meant that."

Already, some of the light in Mikey's bright eyes dimmed with a sorrow that didn't belong there at all, and his shoulders drooped about three inches.

 _This is what all those people did to him,_ Raph thought with the same passionate hatred from before,  _when they shipped him back like damaged goods the second he wasn't their idea of perfect._

"Oh. I dunno if you can fix it, Raphie," Mikey was saying glumly. "The Campbells aren't gonna change their minds. It is what it is, y'know?" He tapped his fingers on the tabletop, and then smiled. "Thanks, though. And hey, we can always be penpals."

Before Raphael could articulate how generally terrible the idea of that was, Leo's voice cut him off from the doorway.

"Mikey, what is this?"

His brother was holding the hoodie, still dark and heavy with rainwater, and Raph almost snapped  _"We_ know  _what that is, hero,"_ but he didn't. Because at a glance, Leo's expression was... off. Donnie and Raph traded looks over Mikey's head, and got up to join him on the other side of the room.

The orange sweatshirt was folded open in Leo's hands, so the inside faced out. And on the inside- parallel to the zipper, in the spot right behind the lefthand pocket- was a tiny rectangular patch of pale yellow fabric, carefully sewed into place along the seams, that said-

Donatello caught his breath so sharply he should have choked, and Raphael thought he felt it when the world actually lurched completely off its axis.

He snapped his head up so fast it hurt. "Your name is  _Michael_ ," Raph bit out, too harsh, and Mikey stared at him.

"Uhh- it's not, actually." He was the target of three unwavering stares, the atmosphere turned supercharged with something he didn't understand. "Cause my full name is so long, most people don't- I mean, I just go by Michael, cause no one likes- "

"Please, Mikey," Leo repeated, sounding strained,  _"what is this?"_

"It's a piece of my baby blanket." From the expression on Mikey's face, they'd all gone crazy. He twisted the hem of his borrowed shirt anxiously, volunteering more information like it might get him out of whatever trouble he was in. "The one I came home from the hospital in. I don't have it anymore, but it was orange, and it had suns and stars on it."

"That's not possible," Donatello whispered. From a hundred miles away  _underwater_ , Raph watched Mikey's mouth tug into a frown.

"I think I'd know, dude."

"But then your name... " Leo hesitated, darting a glance at the sweatshirt again, fingers tightening in the damp fabric. The room was so still and quiet that his voice carried forever when he was finally brave enough to try again; "Your name is- "

"Michelangelo." In the bone-breaking silence that followed, he offered up a shrug and a crooked, tentative smile. "It's a mouthful, right? Everyone says it doesn't suit me."


	6. Chapter 5

Yoshi emerged from his rooms at the sound of raised voices. His children fought like cats and dogs at the best of times but never as heatedly as they were then, and the master pushed through the hanging curtains and into the kitchen with concern well in front of his curiosity.

"You don't even know what you're saying!" Mikey was shouting as he stepped inside, with a real anger that Yoshi had never heard from him before. "That doesn't make any sense, you can't just  _say_ that!"

"Doesn't make any- " Donatello took several quick steps toward him, eyes blazing- and Mikey drew away, arms curled in protectively and freckled face drawn into an unfamiliar scowl. "How many fifteen year old boys with  _your name_ do you think were born on the _same day_ in July?"

"It could have been a mistake! It could have been a- a mixup, maybe my baby blanket wasn't supposed to be mine! Maybe it was an  _accident_ and I don't even  _have_ a real name!"

Whatever they were talking about, Mikey's own words were certainly causing him pain; it was plain in the wet blue of his eyes, and yet he screwed his face up in stubborn denial and looked like he would soldier through anything Yoshi's sons might throw at him.

_Certainly not._

" _Yame,_ " he said sharply, in the tone of voice he usually reserved for the dojo. His sons reacted instantly, three sets of bright eyes darting to his from various points in the room, but none of them moved. An uncomfortable, weighted silence settled over them instead, and within moments Raphael and Donatello were turning their focus back to Mikey- who looked ready, at any moment, to bolt. Not unlike a rabbit sighted by hawks in a wide plain.

Leonardo, however, reached out to him.

"Father," he said quietly, and proffered what he had been holding close to his center.

"Michael's sweatshirt?" Yoshi couldn't help the frown that pulled his mouth at the corners, and took it from his oldest child's trembling hands. He looked at Mikey- small, even moreso than usual somehow without the sweatshirt dangling off his thin frame, and  _fiercely_ on guard in a place where he should have been treated like a welcome guest- and then frowned at his sons. "What on earth is the meaning of this?"

"Look inside it, father." Leonardo stepped close, leaning against his arm to reach over and peel back one side of the hoodie, exposing an inner panel with a curious patchwork near the bottom hem-

And suddenly, Leonardo was the one supporting him, as Yoshi staggered with what felt like a physical blow. That patch was as familiar to him as the faces of his children; even the memory of the fabric aisle at the department store was as clear as crystal. Standing with his beloved wife and her round moon of a belly, picking out colors and patterns and shapes- different for each of their boys, and as pale and sick as she was in those days, she was still so  _excited_ to be having four...

He wrestled back control of himself with an iron fist, though it  _shook._ He could not feel those things, not yet. His boys were lost to a hope or a truth that would devastate them one way or another, and poor Michael- Michelan...  _Mikey_ was simply lost in this place with them and hungry to escape, for the first time since he had first stepped foot through the door.

"What is the meaning of this?" Yoshi asked again, and Mikey looked away.

"I don't know," he muttered, and Raphael's eyes didn't move an inch from him when he spoke up so quickly after Mikey that he almost cut him off.

"It's a piece of his baby blanket, dad. That's his name. When we first met, and he called himself Mike, I-  _assumed._ I never asked what his name was." He clenched his fists and jerked his head, as thought trying to loose something that pulled too tightly around his throat. "Why didn't I ask you what your name was?"

"Because it's just a  _name!_ It doesn't change anything!"

"It changes  _everything,_ " Leonardo said, no louder than a whisper, fingers curling vice-like into his father's sleeve. "It makes you our- "

"No it doesn't!" And now Mikey was crying  _and_ shouting, every word soaked in a misery like corrosive acid. "I'm not your brother! I'm not the Michelangelo you've missed forever, I'm not  _him,_ I'm- I'm  _Mikey!"_ He rubbed his face with his wrist, and for a split second looked shocked to meet his cheek with bare skin rather than the orange sleeve Yoshi knew he was expecting, and then ripped his hand away again. "I'm just gonna be a disappointment, I'm not going to be the thing you hoped and dreamed about. I'll disappoint you like I disappoint everybody and you'll send me away, too, and then I'll lose my best friends cause I couldn't be  _perfect Michelangelo!"_

And with that, the spell on Yoshi's children was broken.

"No, no, no way." Leonardo pushed past Raphael gently and reached for Mikey as slow and soothing as if he were approaching a broken-winged bird. "There's no way you'd lose us, Mikey. Do you really think that?"

Mikey hugged him back, at least, when Leonardo's arms finally made their way around him, and blinked wetly into the cradle of his friend's shoulder. "But I lose everybody _,_ " he muttered, and Leonardo tightened his hold. Mikey's mouth twisted firmly against fresh tears. "And you guys are- you guys are  _awesome._ Losing you guys would- "

" _Never happen_. I don't know if you've noticed, but we're not that good at making friends. How many  _other_ kids have you seen around here?" Leonardo nudged him a little until he looked up, as Raphael and Donatello scooted closer, and Yoshi remained rooted to the tile floor where he stood. Watching the four of them, and seeing brothers where they stood together- not for the first time. "But you're here all the time. We  _like_ having you here."

"You're too good to be true sometimes," Raph added, taciturn and almost unbearably fond. "Donnie tells ya stuff he'd never let outside his head before. And you never take my bad attitude personal. Dad teaches you- and that's family stuff he shows you, stuff his clan passed down to each other through generations. He teaches you that stuff, and that's really something. You  _fit_ with us."

"He's right," Leonardo said, resting his cheek on the crown of Mikey's head. "You fit. Before tonight happened, and a hundred years from now. Doesn't matter if you're Michelangelo or Michael because you're already our Mikey. Don't you ever forget about that."

 _My oldest child,_ Yoshi thought with distant and humbling pride, as Mikey buried himself against Leonardo's shirt and the three brothers smiled at whatever things he was muffling into the fabric,  _is prone to wisdom beyond his years._

But there was proof in his hands that his youngest son could be alive; that his youngest son could have bright blue eyes and freckles and a mouth prone to smile, an affinity for fast sports and stray cats, an endless capacity for compassion and a perpetual joy that hard years hadn't yet managed to smother-

and proof like that Yoshi could  _not_ ignore.

He waited until Mikey pulled out of the warm circle of Leonardo's arms, rubbing his face and smiling when Donatello's hand found his. "Sorry for freaking out," the small boy said with a faint shadow of his usual cheer, and Raphael ruffled his hair.

"Sorry for freaking you out."

Yoshi stepped forward, and despite his iron will found himself searching the shape of Mikey's face and the curve of his eyes and the shade of his hair; and maybe the similarities to his children that he found there were only wishful thinking, only things he saw because he was looking to see them, but somehow now in the warm light of the kitchen with a damp sweatshirt in hand, Mikey looked like...

_Michelangelo._

And just like that, his heart was won by the idea, and only a shadow of doubt remained; a beaver dam left to hold back a torrential flood.  _It has to be,_ he thought, fingers brushing like butterfly wings against the worn cotton patch,  _I wrapped him in the blanket myself, this cannot be a coincidence._

_It is him._

_But it might not be. And I will not hurt the child by leaping so carelessly to a truth that I want when there is a chance it could be proven wrong. I will_ not.

"Michael," he said, kind and calm in the same way he always did. Mikey responded to the normalcy like a flower unfolding to spring, turning wide blue eyes up to Yoshi's brown. "If there is...  _any_  chance that you are my child, I would like to find out for certain. Would you agree to that?"

"Well, of course," the boy said, blinking at him. "I would never- I mean, you totally have the right to know, I wouldn't keep that from you."

Yoshi could not have been alone in the ache in his heart then; from the miserable looks on the faces of his children, they felt it, too.  _He has been taught that he doesn't matter._

"It's your right, too, Mikey," Leonardo said gently, nudging his shoulder. Yoshi was not assured by the half-hearted nod Mikey replied with, and cleared his throat.

"However, my children have made a point very clear to me." He knelt, putting himself at the child's eye level, and Mikey actually almost backpedaled at the gesture; might have, if genuine respect hadn't glued his feet to the floor, and if Donatello didn't still hold his hand. Yoshi wished there were more words in the world, proper ones, to explain this as easily and appropriately as Mikey deserved, but wishing solved nothing. So he put a hand on Mikey's arm and said, "In the short time we have known you, you have become like family to us. And whatever we discover- if you're ours by blood, or you're not- I would be honored to call you my son."

"Dad?" Raphael asked sharply, while Leonardo reached over to seize his brother's shoulder and Donatello  _stared_.

"Wait, what?" Mikey asked with a confused wrinkle in his brow. And then, as confusion cleared away and his eyes grew as round as dinnerplates,  _"_ Wait,  _what?"_

"I want to adopt you," he said, with a smile. Not thinking of fabric aisles or suns and stars or orange hoodies- just the dear, surprised face in front of him and the dear, delighted faces beyond it. "To make you an official member of our family. If you would like."

The resulting dogpile was inevitable; he simply couldn't fit his arms around all of his boys the way he could when they were small. But his sons did enough of the hugging to go around, cheering and yelling and in one case crying, and through it all Mikey was solid warmth against his chest and shoulder, hands clenched in the back of his robes and face buried in his collar-

 _It is him,_ his heart said again, only a whisper because it didn't need to shout. There were tears in Yoshi's eyes as he held the boy as tight as he dared to, feeling- for the first time since the day they were born- as though all of his children had come home.

_It is him._


	7. Chapter 6

The second worse thing was pretending like nothing had changed.

Mikey looked terrified- confronted with the sudden possibility of a warm, loving family right after he had a bag packed and every intention of leaving for good- and Leo  _understood._ He  _understood_ why Mikey was scared, it was too good to be true that his best friends were somehow his long lost brothers and the house that he visited every day could be his home. It was practically impossible, nothing  _wonderful_ like that could really happen, and Mikey had automatically prepared himself for hurt because a lifetime of disappointment had conditioned him against miracles.

Which seemed a little... tragic.

So Leo put all his hope behind a door and locked it, and said everything Mikey needed to hear, and pretended it was just his  _friend_ he was holding and not his baby brother. Otherwise he would never be able to open his arms up and let Mikey go. And he had to.

And that was the worst thing.

But technically- legally- Mikey still belonged to his foster parents. And when the Hamatos made their case, if they had to make their case, it wouldn't look good when the state found out they had been practically harboring a runaway. Mikey didn't want to go home,  _that_ was obvious- but he didn't want to stay, either. He was unhappy and stuck in the middle and it showed on his face when he pulled away from Leo, when it was time for Master Yoshi to drive him home.

"Actually," Yoshi said suddenly, pausing with his hand on the carport door, "if you could wait here a moment." He gestured for them to stay and then turned down the hall, leaving Leo and his brothers to glance at each other.

"He's not- mad, is he?" Mikey asked, and Leo had to stomp down a wild, springing surge of fierce, proprietary care. Mikey may have been his,  _may have been,_ but he still... wasn't. Not yet. And he wouldn't welcome another hug given the circumstances. So all Leo did was smile and shrug one shoulder even though it sort of killed him inside.

"No way. He just gets this way sometimes."

"You'll get used to it," Raph said gruffly, folding his arms and leaning against the wall. Donnie had cottoned on to what his brothers' casual body language was hoping to accomplish and followed their lead, subtly moving away by inches and giving Mikey space to get his head on straight. Moments later, Yoshi returned; and Raphael straightened back into a stand when he saw what his father was holding. "The chucks?"

"These  _nunchaku_ are precious to my family, as are the  _katana_ ,  _sai_ and  _bo_ my sons practice with." He took one of Mikey's hands and turned it palm up, placing the red and gold chainsticks there and then closing Mikey's fingers around them. "Keep them close to you until you can believe in our intentions." Mikey's eyes snapped up and he opened his mouth, but Yoshi shook his head. "You are no fool, Michelangelo, and this guard you keep was not built on a whimsey. It's alright." Their father's smile was unbearably kind as he drew his hands away, and continued, "Until you feel safe in us, these will serve as a reminder."

Mikey looked a little shell-shocked, but he was clutching the chucks in both hands and allowed himself to be steered out into the carport- only barely remembering to call a goodbye over his shoulder as Yoshi closed the door behind them.

Donatello collapsed into the foyer's loveseat. "Sensei gave him the nunchucks."

Leo stared at the hardwood panels of the closed door and managed, "Yup."

Raph's arms were still folded, the green of his eyes hard and frustrated. "He's still scared."

Leo felt his shoulders droop a little at that, fighting against the sigh he could feel building in his lungs. "Yup."

Donnie glanced up at him, fingers twisted in his lap. "What... what should we do to help him?"

Leo was still working on a reply when the carport door burst open, so hard it slammed against the spring doorstop and nearly shut again, and Mikey was there- shoving his still-damp hoodie into Leo's arms and muttering, "A reminder."

Then he was gone again, the door closing behind him with a loud snap, and the brothers were left looking at each other, and then at the precious orange bundle in Leo's hands.

It was Raph who finally answered, a minute or an hour later, with a quiet, "Anything."

* * *

"Last but not least, I'm going to need a sample from you now, sweetheart," the doctor said warmly, and when Mikey opened his mouth the woman rubbed the inside of his cheek with a buccal swab and then stood back with a flourish. "All done!"

 _He's doing a lot better than yesterday,_ Leo thought as Mikey hopped down and trotted over to drop gracelessly into the seat beside him. He ruffled Mikey's hair automatically, still watching the doctor as she packed the samples away into a labeled container.  _The shock and stress must have worn off, thank god._

"Paternity testing in general takes two business days," the doctor was explaining to Master Yoshi kindly, signing something on a clipboard. "A sibling test takes up to two weeks. It'll be hard to wait, but I feel that the sibling test will yield the most credible results since there are multiple children. A motherless paternity test wouldn't give you the validation you're looking for, but if these four samples come back matching, you'll know without a doubt that Sunshine is yours."

Mikey missed the petname, making faces at Raph from across the room, but Leonardo caught his father's eye and shared a smile.

"So Mikey's foster parents don't even know we're having a DNA test done?" Donatello asked on the drive home, leaning up between the driver's and passenger's side seats. "Did they talk to you at all last night, father?"

Yoshi glanced into the rearview mirror at Mikey, who shrugged and smiled. Something hardened in the master's amber eyes, and he looked at the road again. "They weren't as concerned as I might have been, had a complete stranger dropped one of my children off in the late hours of the night."

Raph went,  _"Ooooh,"_  probably so Mikey could grin at him instead of hunkering like a sad old dog at the gentle reminder of how little the Campbells cared, but Donatello wasn't budging.

"So then, we're going to wait until we get the DNA tests back to confront them about Mikey?" The youngest- second youngest- Hamato's round eyes looked almost red in the glare of the afternoon sun through the lower tint of the windshield. "But it won't matter what the results say, because you said either way- "

"I did," their father assured him, and Donatello sank back to his seat. A few minutes later, Yoshi pulled off the highway and into the parking lot of a pizza parlor, and Leo almost laughed when Mikey took one glance at the sign and actually cheered.

"Antonio's! This place is my literal favorite! Dudes, have you tried their stuffed crust?  _Uh-may-zing!"_

"I don't think I've ever had Antonio's," Don said, stringing an arm around Mikey's shoulders comfortably as they headed inside. It was a little after two in the afternoon so the dining room wasn't quite half full; the server gave them a quick smile on her way by with a full tray of dirty dishes, and Yoshi indicated for her to take her time. "It's a little out of the way, isn't it?"

Mikey made a fish-face at him. "Pshh, quality pizza is quality pizza, bro. My karate instructor says he's gonna order from here for my belt ceremony!"

"Your belt ceremony?" Raphael asked suddenly, sharply, and just his tone was enough to bring Leonardo's attention away from the hanging menu he was scanning and back to the conversation. "As in your  _black belt_ ceremony?"

"Oops," Mikey whispered, eyes widening. Leo stared at him, and then at Raphael, who looked like he wanted to strangle something. "Don't be mad!"

"Mikey, you _promised_ you'd tell me when it was. You know I wanna go."

"Well- I mean, you haven't missed it, it's on Saturday." Mikey ducked his head a second later, scuffing his sneaker on the tiled floor, then darted a glance up through his bangs. "But it's  _really_ not a big deal. You don't have to come."

 _He should have been excited to tell us,_ Leonardo thought with a conviction that surprised him. _He should have been bouncing off the walls, hanging off our arms until we promised we'd come no matter what. He's_ Mikey,  _that's how it should have been. They're teaching him he's not important, and he's learning it cause he has no choice._

 _He's_ drowning  _in that house. I won't wait two weeks to save him._


	8. Chapter 7

"Have you heard of the "July effect," Leo?"

His brother glanced up from the book he wasn't reading, and Don felt Leo's eyes roam over his face- probably pale, probably tired, Donnie hadn't been sleeping lately- before dropping to the bundle of printouts in Donnie's hands.

"No, I haven't."

"In Europe they call it the "killing season." It's the time of year when med school graduates start independent practice."

When Leo sat up and took the page from him, Donnie felt a glow of warmth; because Leo skipped the blocks of printed text and jumped straight to Don's writing in the margins, turning the paper slightly to read the compact script where it curled around a corner.

Watching him, Don added, "That number on the chart is the number of medical errors across the whole United States that took place in July on the year that we were born. It's based on a study that was taken two years ago."

"Well, isn't that perfect. If only we'd been winter babies," Leo muttered, almost to himself, and Don huffed out a laugh because he'd thought the same thing. Spinning his office chair back to reach for another set of papers out of a different stack, he somehow swung his arm too wide and knocked over his lamp. The lamp took a mason jar down with it, scattering calligraphy pens and charcoal pencils across the desk and a few to the floor. Leo gave him a strange look, even as he put the printout aside and started to get up, but Donnie waved him back down again.

"It's fine, I'll get them later. Look at this."

He moved from his chair to sit by Leo on the bed, holding the stapled pages between them. It was littered in his scribbling, too, but he had circled the important parts.

"Teaching hospitals have ten percent more medical errors in the month of July than hospitals that aren't affiliated with a university. This- here at the bottom- this is a list of all the teaching hospitals in New York City."

"And this is the one where we were born," Leo said, finger hovering over the third name from the top. "So, looks like we were lucky enough to hit all the wrong variables at once, huh?"

Donnie shoved a hand through his hair, taking his papers back. "All things considered we were twenty percent more likely to experience the July effect than the average family, based on statistics and the numbers I just gave you. Twenty percent!"

Leonardo was quiet, gazing at him without a shade of the impatience or expectation Donnie had come to expect from his other brother and father respectively. And Leo was smart, smarter than he ever got credit for next to Donatello, so Don knew what he was really saying when he didn't say anything at all.

Drawing his research away into his lap, Donatello flipped through the papers tiredly while percentiles went spinning uselessly through his head. Even though all the numbers and all the statistics had come together into  _exactly_ what Don had been searching for, he  _still_ hadn't found his answer.

"I just... I need to understand."

"Understand what, Donnie?"

That was Leo extending a hand to him, now. To pull him out of the pit he'd dug himself into. It was the whole reason he was in Don's room in the first place, the reason he showed up whole hours ago under the pretense of finding a quiet place to read. Don could read his brothers like a computer algorithm, but Leo had him beat in that department.

"Monozygotic twins are the result of a single egg splitting into two embryos, did you know that? That's why they're born identical to one another, they both share the exact same genetic code. Some scientists think that could explain the "twin telepathy" phenomena. It's more common in monozygotics- "

"Donnie..."

" -but studies show it's been found in fraternal multiples, too. Our  _missing pain_ was probably  _shared pain,_  Leo. We thought we were missing him because we thought he was gone, but he wasn't. He was out there, hurting, and we could feel it, because you can't share pain with someone who's  _dead."_

The papers were shoved out of his hands, then, and Leo was hugging him hard. It wasn't until Donnie buried his face against his shoulder, and felt the warm tears smear across his cheek, that he realized he was crying. He had thought he was past anguish and well into anger, but the despair hit him again, like a solid hook to the chest, and maybe it always would.

"He was alive, and he was lonely, and he grew up thinking we abandoned him. Our baby brother, Leo, and he thought we didn't  _want_  him." Don's eyes drifted to his careful research laying scattered on the floor, and his hands balled into fists at the thought of how _useless_ it all was. "Someone's stupid, careless mistake ruined his whole  _life_. And... I can't- find anything to help me  _understand."_

Leo murmured something, it sounded like  _"shh, hush,"_ and his hands on Donnie's shoulders didn't shake when he leaned back enough to look at him with calm, certain blue eyes.

"Your research was awesome, as usual. But blanket statistics don't mean anything next to a case of extenuating circumstances- nothing you can read online or in a book will tell us what happened  _that_  day in  _that_ hospital. We have to sit tight until we get those test results back, and then we can go get our answers face to face."

Leo pulled his sleeve over his hand and started to rub Don's face dry; prompting Don to immediately bat him away and do it himself, cheeks reddening. From the smile on his face when he sat back, Leo had planned it that way.

"We'll figure out everything, Donnie, I promise."

He was only older by a few minutes but it was easy to forget it most days; Leonardo was good at making the whole world make sense, the way some people were good at making pancakes, and sometimes it seemed like he was years out of Donatello's league.

"But you can't drive yourself into the ground with this, you hear me? Or I'll sic Mikey on you. He's a black belt now, he might really do some damage."

"You don't have to  _threaten_ me, Leo," Don said, and smiled for the first time in days.

* * *

A few nights later, Don woke up with a Really Bad Feeling.

He blinked tiredly at the ceiling as he laid in bed, trying to pinpoint what woke him up- his room was still and silent, dark save for the blinking battery lights of sleeping electronics- and why his heart was racing.

After about a minute, his chest twisted like in a muscle spasm, and he sighed.  _Missing pain._ He rolled over again, disregarding the ache completely, because it sprung up without warning now and again. It was best handled by cramming a pillow over his head and pretending it didn't hurt until it went away.

Across the room, the digital clock on top of the second bookshelf didn't have time to change from 3:22 to 3:23 before Don was shooting up again, trying to scramble out of bed and only really accomplishing getting his legs tangled in the sheets and lurching to the floor.

It was never missing pain, it was always  _shared._

_Mikey's hurt._

Throwing open his door, Donnie practically slammed into Raph in the middle of the hallway. His brother's hand catching his elbow kept Don upright, and Raph looked ruffled and irritated for only being half-awake.

"Jeez, Donnie, where's the fire?"

"I think it's Mikey, I think something's wrong," he blurted, voice a breathless rush. "I woke up and it felt like someone was stomping on my chest."

Raphael's fingers tightened on his arm for a split second before letting him go. "It's just that missing thing, Don. I felt it, too. Not as bad as all that stomping business, but enough to wake me up."

_I haven't told him yet? What good is all that research if you don't share it with anyone, Donnie!_

"It's not missing pain! How could it be, he's  _alive."_ He grabbed Raph's hand back and tugged, hoping beyond hope that Raph's stubborn streak wouldn't rear it's ugly head between them; hoping that Raph would just  _listen_ before he rolled his eyes at all Don's longwinded elucidations and left him standing there with a pain in his chest that wasn't going away. "It's not missing, it's  _shared._ Please let me explain, Raph, I'll explain everything, just don't- "

"Wait, let me get this straight. You think Mikey's in trouble?"

Raph was as different from Donatello as it was possible for brothers born within a minute of each other to be; all the statistics, all the testimony, all the proof in the world could scream its truth into his face, and if Raph didn't like it he would just turn a blind eye and a deaf ear and believe whatever he wanted instead. Facts and figures weren't what he put his faith in.

So Donatello took a deep breath, put those facts and figures on a shelf in the back of his mind, and nodded. A second later, Raph's eyes narrowed in the kind of fierce conviction it would take a tank to tear down and his hand in Donnie's wrapped tighter.

"That's good enough for me, little brother."


	9. Chapter 8

"He's not answering," Leo muttered tersely, hitting redial for the fifth time in as many minutes. The three of them were on Leo's bed, huddled around the house phone, and Raph's fists clenched when the call went to voicemail  _again._ "It's late, but... you guys have heard his ringtone. It could wake up the  _dead_."

"Why wouldn't he answer his phone?" Don asked in a whisper. His freaky brain was probably in overdrive, producing worse case scenario on top of scenario, and one hand was still absently rubbing his chest where the missing- or whatever- pain must have lingered. "Maybe the battery died?"

"Mikey's an idiot, but he charges his phone religiously. It's the only way he can keep up with his friends in New York." Raph watched Leo's face fold in frustration after another rendition of Mikey's voicemail recording- a beatbox and rap that was usually sort of cringingly hilarious to listen to- and snatched the phone out of his hand with a growl. "That's it, we're calling the house."

"What?" Leo grabbed for the phone back, incredulous, and Raph smoothly held it out of the way. "You can't call the Campbells at this hour!"

"Why not? We got Donnie channeling Jean Grey over there, now Mikey's not answering his phone- I'm not digging the twin ESP thing, it's too much like something off one of dad's stupid soap operas, but I'm not gonna ignore all this crap either. Something's  _up_."

Leo hesitated, his hand sinking down from its reach. Raph knew what had Leo conflicted; if they called that house and woke one of the Campbells up at an odd hour, they'd be royally ticked off and Mikey would be the one to have to deal with it. In some small, petty way, those people would make that kid's life just a little bit harder than it was already, and the Hamatos would probably never even find out about it because that was the kind of thing Mikey didn't share with the class.

Leo eyed the phone in Raph's hand uncertainly, worried about Mikey versus worried about getting him in trouble.

So Raph pulled out the endgame card.

"He could be hurt, Leo," he added, and the wind dropped right out of Leo's sails, just like Raph thought it would. Leo sighed, running a hand through his dark hair and finally nodded.

"Alright. You're right."

"Jean Grey? Seriously?" Donnie muttered as Raph punched in the number Mikey had given him weeks ago, 'y'know, just in case.' He shared a quick glance with his brothers, thumb hovering over the green call button, but in the split second before he pressed down-

-the doorbell rang.

_You're kidding._

After a short moment of wide eyes and mutual what-the-heckery, the three of them were scrambling off Leo's bed and into the hall- running as silently as they possibly could past the thin wall of the dojo and their father's rooms beyond it- and then skidding as one messy unit into the foyer.

"I hope it didn't wake dad," Leo worried even as he made short work of disarming the security system. "I kind of haven't figured out how to explain any of this to him yet."

"Technically there's like a ten percent chance it could be a serial killer," Donatello whispered from somewhere behind Raph's shoulder and Leo shut the alarm panel with a quiet snap. Raph pulled open the door without deliberation.

"And that's why math is stupid."

Because there was really no one it could have been but Mikey; dressed in rainbow cat pajama pants, a Teen Titans shirt and untied orange Chucks, the red and gold nunchucks tucked into his waistband. There was something suspicious about the way he was holding his hands together, but he was standing on their front porch alive and all in one piece, if a little pale and anxious, and Raph felt relief like warm honey melt all the way down to his bones.

"I'm so so sorry it's so late," Mikey blurted, shifting his weight as though he was ready to take off if they were angry with him. "But it's dark, and the park was seriously bugging me out, and I couldn't think where else to go- "

" _Always_ come here," Raph said, and pulled him inside.

* * *

There was a small den on the opposite side of the house with a tiny attached kitchenette and bathroom; the functioning purpose of the space was just convenience for guests like Uncle Saki and Aunt Shen when they came to visit and stayed in one of the empty rooms in that wing. Lately though it was seeing plenty more use as an unofficial clubhouse. Mikey called it "the lair" and darned if that stupid name wasn't sticking.

And it was in the lair that Mikey surrendered his hand to Leo's patient scrutiny, claiming under three pairs of expectant eyes, "I fell down the stairs."

"Bullcrap, Mikey," Raph countered promptly. "I've seen you do  _handsprings_ down a flight of stairs. Now what happened really?"

"I really did fall." Mikey's eyes cut away to trace the pattern on his pants, mouth twisting firmly. "And I landed on my hand really hard."

"But you were really scared," Donnie interjected, brow knitted in confusion and concern. When Mikey glanced at him, he added quickly, "I mean, obviously you were, since you left in such a rush. You're still in your pajamas, you didn't even grab your phone, you ran all the way across town in the dark- which, by the way, is extremely not safe- "

"Nah, I had my chucks!" Mikey patted the chainsticks reassuringly, and some of the light came back to the bright blue of his eyes. "I had 'em on me when I fell, I don't like leaving them laying around since they're so important to sensei. Wait a minute, holy cats! Running around in the night with nunchucks and a black belt in karate- dudes, I'm a  _ninja!"_

Raph's hands were balled into fists- Mikey was  _not_ going to get out of this with a joke, not this time. Not at four o'clock in the morning, when Donnie looked like he was going to cry from worry and Mikey's wrist was swollen and bruised. This time, Raph wanted the undoctored, unabridged truth. Mikey was going to  _stop_ shrugging stuff off, and pretending like it didn't hurt, and hiding behind that stupid sunshine grin.

He was safe with his brothers, safe in the lair. He could tell them the truth.

But just as Raph opened his mouth to make sure they were all on the same page with this plan- and if not, how he would  _get_ them on the same page- Leo cut him off with a sharp look. Patting Mikey's hand gently, the oldest said, "I'm going to get some ice for this. Other than your wrist, are you okay?"

Mikey looked absurdly relieved that the interrogation was over. He nodded and smiled wide. "I'm okay."

"Okay. Donnie, keep his wrist elevated for me?" Leo stood, and carded his fingers through Mikey's hair fondly while Donnie scooted over to take his spot, then nodded Raph toward the kitchenette. "Come help me find a towel."

Raph followed him, seething, and waited until they were by the fridge to snap, "How can you be so blasé about this? He's  _lying_ , he didn't just trip down a staircase at three o'clock in the morning and then decide to take a stroll through town, those people did something to him! Do you even care?"

Leo's hand shot out like a freaking snake, and in the next second Raph was pinned to the wall on the far side of the fridge, out of sight and with his brother's forearm pressed against his throat. It wasn't a move their father taught them during exercises, and Raph wondered distantly where Leo had picked it up.

"Alright, my bad," he folded immediately, self-preservation doing its job for once. Leo spent all his free time in the dojo, time Donnie spent in books and Raph spent in trouble, and it wasn't for nothing. "You care. Obviously."

"Obviously," Leo muttered. The deceptive composure in his voice was gone, and what took its place was like the blast wave after a nuclear charge. "Listen, Raph. Sensei will be awake soon, and he'll know what to do. Until then,  _we're_  clueless and Mikey's scared." Leo's hold on him loosened until it didn't hurt anymore, and then he let go completely. "So just...cool it, okay? Mikey's freaked out enough as it is without your temper making it worse."

 _I hate when he's right,_ Raph thought with feeling, after Leo had gone back to Mikey with a honeyed smile and the homemade ice pack. And when Don emerged from the movie cabinet victorious, with a battered VHS in hand, Mikey finally caught Raph's eye from across the room.

"You gonna watch Jurassic Park with us?"

There was an edge to his voice that didn't belong there, and Leo had called it, Mikey was still scared. Whatever happened had him on edge, and as much as Raph would have loved- more than  _anything-_ to get some answers and then start taking names, Mikey needed to detox.

So Raph rubbed a hand over his face and turned to pull open the freezer side door. He dug for a certain brightly-colored carton, let the door fall shut once he had it, grabbed a handful of spoons from a drawer near the sink, and then dropped gracelessly to the floor in front of Mikey's chair.

Handing up the carton and two of the spoons was like a Hail Mary pass. Mikey gasped in pure delight, "No way, I  _love_ Neapolitan!" and braced the tub on top of Raph's head to wrestle the lid off one-handedly- prompting Raph to take it back again and return it sans the lid. "This night just got awesome."

_Michael O'Neil is not a hard guy to please._

"Ice cream and dinosaurs are like the power combo, any time, any where. Come on, guys," Raph said with disdain, mostly just for the sake of hearing Mikey laugh.

Leo's quiet chuckle was okay, too.

* * *

By the time the credits started to roll, Mikey was slumped over on Leo in much the same way Donnie was slumped over Raph.

"Jeez, they're like those big dumb St. Bernards that think they're lap dogs," Raph grumbled quietly, carefully moving his arm out from behind Don's head so he wouldn't wake up with a cramp in his neck. Leo only hummed softly, an acknowledgement, and about that time the door was pushed open and their father was leaning in.

"I thought I would find you in the lair," he said sagely, and looked surprised to see Mikey sprawled across Leo on the loveseat. "When did Michael arrive?"

"At a little after three o'clock this morning, father," Leo replied, earnest and straightforward. "He won't tell us what happened, but his wrist is hurt. I've iced it, but the swelling hasn't gone down and now it's colored pretty bad."

"And he was freaked out, sensei," Raph added quickly, brow furrowed. "He ran all the way here in the dark in his pajamas. No matter what he says, he was  _freaked out."_

Something painful was happening in their father's brown eyes, as he leaned over the sleeping orphan- not orphan- and brushed a few stray curls out of his face. "I will speak to him," he finally said, standing back and folding his hands in the sleeves of his robes. "But for now we should allow him to rest. In the meantime, I'll call the doctor over to see about his wrist. Leonardo- "

"I'm fine," the dark-haired boy said at once, draping an arm over Mikey and looking pretty content with the world and his lapdog St. Bernard. "He's not heavy."

And as their dad flipped the lights off and the room fell into a natural dim, Raph was stuck on that.

 _Mikey's_ not  _heavy,_ Raph thought bitterly,  _so why the hell can't we carry him?_


	10. Chapter 9

"He pushed you down the  _stairs_? _"_

Behind stunned disbelief there was redhot  _fury_ in Raphael's voice; building like molten rock under the surface of a volcano in the days before an eruption, and Mikey must have heard it as clearly as Yoshi did. He reached for Raphael with his free arm, eyes round and earnest.

"Not on purpose, Raphie. The Campbells looked totally worried after it happened- I don't think he realized how close we were to the staircase."

"Yeah, worried they're gonna have child services called on them," Raphael hissed, Mikey's hand on his wrist possibly the only thing keeping him in his chair. "I don't believe this. That evil son of a- "

"That is enough," Yoshi said sharply, and his green-eyed child fell silent; mutinously so, but it would have to do for the time being. Leonardo tapped Mikey's arm, a reminder for him to sit still, and moved the cold compress back over the mottled bruising on the smaller boy's wrist. Mikey settled back in his chair again, gaze dragging reluctantly over Leonardo's patient administrations, and Yoshi prompted, "Go on, Michael."

"Okay, uh... Well, one of them dropped something that broke really loud, and it woke me up." The child probably would have been fidgetting, had he had a free hand to twist in his usual display of nerves; as it was, he tapped a foot against the tile floor and pressed on. "When I came out to see what was going on, they were yelling in the office, and Mr. Campbell grabbed Mrs. Campbell's arm real hard. I- I  _really_ don't think he would've hurt her," Mikey added in a rush, round eyes flicking up to meet Yoshi's unflinchingly. "He's not a bad guy. He was just  _super_ mad- about work probably- and he'd been drinking, I think that's why they were fighting in the first place. But- he grabbed her, and she's gonna have a baby, and you gotta be careful, right? So I told him to let her go, and he didn't, so I got in between 'em. And it ticked him off, and he shoved me."

 _Oh, Michelangelo._ Yoshi pressed a hand to his eyes, taking a much-needed moment to compartmentalize. In that time, Donatello leaned across the table, bearing his weight on his forearms and asking quickly, "And you're sure you're okay?"

And that was the million dollar question, wasn't it? Mikey was wound tight as a spring, and seconds ticked by before he managed to hitch up a smile. He shrugged one shoulder even as his fingers tightened on Raphael's arm and said, "Yeah. I mean, yeah. I'm okay. Just freaked me out, y'know?"

Donatello looked 'freaked out' enough for the both of them put together, staring at Mikey's swollen wrist. His boys had not been secretive about their dislike of Mikey's foster family, but Yoshi suspected they had never once thought the Campbells capable of actual physical  _harm_ \- accidental or otherwise.

Yoshi hadn't, either.

 _If I had,_ he thought, with burning conviction,  _it would not have been allowed to come to this._

"Um," Mikey said suddenly, snapping the master's heavy thoughts back to point. He was practically shrinking in his chair, spine curling and shoulders hunching, but his eyes were lamplike and wide. "Do you think I did right?"

Wild horses could not have kept Yoshi from reaching out for him then; cupping the child's face in one hand, and carding the other through sleep-tousled curls. Marveling at the empathetic spirit that had flourished under the weight of lonely years, at the kindness where there should have been learned apathy.

"You did  _exactly_ right," he said firmly, taking one of the many steps necessary in reversing the cold lessons past homes had taught this precious boy. "You acted bravely. I'm very proud of you."

Something bright was dawning in Mikey's face, the beginnings of a more familiar smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "You mean it?"

"Of course," Leonardo said, as reasonable as you please. "If Mr. Campbell had hurt his wife last night, he would regret it forever, don't you think?"

"Not to mention, it would have created trust issues between them that would have been a constant, daily stressor for Mrs. Campbell until they were resolved, and stress can have a harmful impact on women during pregnancy," added Donatello with absentminded certainty, pushing long bangs out of his face. He finally looked away from Mikey's wrist, meeting his eyes instead. "In some cases, it can cause an expecting mother to produce hormones that lead to premature labor or miscarriage. It's good you stepped in when you did, just in case."

"You wanted to protect her." Raphael twisted his arm until his palm was facing up and he could wrap his hand around Mikey's in turn, something fierce in every line and shadow of his face. "And wanting to protect people isn't wrong. Just... no stairs next time, deal?"

When Mikey laughed it was a shy and pleased-sounding thing, and he looked so much like Yoshi's beloved Sunday as he agreed, "Deal!" that it should have been painful.

Somehow, instead, it was wonderful, and Yoshi pet his hair once more before he drew his hand away; putting thoughts of the dearly departed on a shelf for the time being. "Before anything else, we need to call your social worker," he said. "You mentioned once that she also ran the household of your group home in New York?"

"Uh- yeah, she and her daughter have a really big townhouse, and the foster kids' rooms are up in this amazing loft. I guess it's a pretty rare thing, but she's like the best ever at her job." Mikey blinked at him, head canting to one side. "Why are we calling her?"

"You need to tell her what's going on," Raphael said, in a serious tone he seemed to reserve for moments like these. It made Mikey listen, anyway, and Yoshi allowed his middle- second oldest- son to take the reigns. "You  _ran away_. She should hear why from  _you,_ not the Campbells."

"And ask if we're allowed to take you to the hospital," Leonardo tacked on, and Mikey frowned.

"I don't wanna go to the hospital. And I don't wanna tell on the Campbells. They can't get in trouble now, not when they're about to have a baby."

Raphael struggled visibly against a flood of words that Yoshi could tell would have tasted extremely satisfying, like a glass of iced tea after an afternoon spent in the sun; but the passionate child managed to settle for something mild instead. "You're not telling on them, Mikey, you're just telling what happened. It'll be okay as long as you tell the whole truth, right? You said she's the best, so she'll know what to do."

"I  _guess..."_

"And a trip to the hospital is not up for discussion," Yoshi added sagely, with a wry curl of amusement when Mikey slunk into a pout. "Donatello, bring the phone over here, please. Michael has a call to make."

"You guys are  _bullies,_ you know that?" Mikey said with feeling, letting go of Raphael to take the cordless landline when Donatello handed it over. Leonardo ruffled Mikey's hair as he dialed, grinning crookedly, and something in that singular, casual moment- watching the four of them sit comfortably around the same table, as though they had never known a day apart- filled Yoshi with an incredible warmth.

He directed his smile at the cup of tea he raised to his lips as Leonardo said, "Only because we care."

* * *

"Mrs. O'Neil is definitely not gonna be happy about this," Mikey said glumly, while his arm was wrapped carefully in several layers of soft white cotton. Which seemed quite the understatement; no one in the room with him was very happy about it, either. "Do I _need_ a cast?"

"Shut up, Mikey, your wrist is broken," Donatello said in a rush, watching the doctor's hands like a hawk.

"It's a distal radius fracture," Dr. Sloane replied kindly. He was young in his profession, but gifted; and his family had been good friends to the Hamatos for years. "One of the more common injuries we see around here, especially in young athletes. Since the bone is in a good place, surgery won't be necessary, but you'll have to live with a cast for about eight weeks. Think you can manage?"

The man was already moving away to drain the orange fiberglass bandages he'd left to soak in the sink, so Mikey's mutinous look went unheeded. Raphael leaned over and socked him hard in the shoulder.

"He'll manage just fine, or else."

Mikey stuck his tongue out, and Dr. Sloane laughed as he took his seat again, with damp fiberglass in hand. "Alright, tough guy, hold still."

The first layer went on quickly; there, Sloane stopped to pull the cotton underside up over the edges of the new cast, and then wrapped another orange coat on top of the first. Mikey watched the process curiously, for all that he'd decided to be markedly unimpressed by it.

"The resin in the fiberglass reacts to water," Sloane explained when he was finished, checking his work. "It's already sticky, and starts to harden in about four minutes, so it's fast doing."

What came next was the molding, first of the cast where it sat on the palm, and then of the part that covered the forearm. When it came to the wrist, he warned Mikey that the pressure might hurt, but he was careful and Mikey barely cringed.

"You're going to have to take it easy," Sloane started to tell him, then paused and turned to Yoshi instead. "He's going to have to take it easy. Absolutely  _no_ gymnastics." Mikey gave a little wail of  _"none?"_ and the doctor shook his head good-naturedly. "I don't want him working out, no sports, nothing that could put unnecessary strain on his wrist. He looks like the type to go stir-crazy and drive you nuts, but I really have to insist. Keep it elevated above heart level as often as you can, and come back in about three weeks. By then the swelling should have gone down, and his cast will have loosened, so we'll fix him right up with a new one."

Yoshi nodded his assent to the terms, all of which were nothing if not reasonable even if Mikey seemed to think the world was ending, and accepted the prescription Sloane handed him for a medium-strength pain reliever they could fill at the hospital pharmacy downstairs. After a chorus of thankyous from his children, Yoshi led them down the hall toward the elevators.

Mikey dragged his feet, and stared balefully at the cheerful orange of his short arm cast. "This  _sucks,_ " he muttered with feeling, and though Raphael's eyes flashed like St. Elmo's fire, none of that heat made it to his voice.

"Heck yeah, it does," he replied, hauling Mikey against him by an arm around his shoulders. "But you're still gonna do all that stuff doc said back there. A few months of nothin' is better than making it worse and hurting yourself permanently."

"I know," the smaller blond conceded, albeit miserably. The older boys shared a quick look over his head, frustrated and despairing, and the elevator doors chose that moment to roll open with a soft chime. Their family stood to one side while a nurse maneuvered her medicine cart through the doors, and Mikey looked up in time to catch the tail end of Raphael's expression. The child blinked, and, after a moment, grinned. "But hey, no worries!" he added, with a large degree of his usual charm, and Yoshi was absolutely certain it was all for their sake. "It can't be  _that_ bad. I'll think of something to do to pass the time."

"Of that I have no doubt," Yoshi said fondly, and Mikey's chuckle was the most welcome sound in the world. "Now let's fill your prescription, and then pick up lunch on our way home. We'll also need to make sure the house is presentable for Mrs. O'Neil before she arrives this evening."

The plan was received enthusiastically, and when the boys clamored inside the elevator in their turn they were already deep in a critical deliberation of crusts and toppings, the atmosphere lighter by spades. But as Yoshi made to follow them, he heard his name called from the opposite end of the hallway, and turned to find the doctor they met almost two weeks ago making her way over at a trot.

"Go ahead, dad," Raphael said, arm slung out to keep the doors from closing with little regard for the handful of other passengers in the car. Just behind him, Leonardo was borrowing a marker from an amused nurse's aide so Donatello could draw an alligator samurai on Mikey's cast, because the latter had proclaimed it would be  _'off the chain.'_

Shaking his head at their manners, or lack thereof, Yoshi moved to meet the doctor halfway. She greeted him with a pleasant smile and began flipping through the thick stack of papers in her hands.

"I'm so glad I don't have to wait to call you! The results from your family's DNA test came back a few days early. Now, I know this isn't very professional of me, but I saw you as I was headed back to my office just now, and- well, I thought you would want to know  _right_ away."

He unfolded the letter she gave him with hands that didn't shake, though inwardly he was reeling. Almost two weeks ago, two weeks had seemed like a lifetime to wait, and his sons had waited a lifetime already. And yet suddenly, the waiting was over- abruptly, prematurely- and he was holding their answer in his hands.

Scanning the contents of the page haphazardly- even though every word should have been read with care- Yoshi's eyes finally lit upon a paragraph near the bottom, above a complicated chart.

_**Conclusion:** _ _The genetic data supports a biological sibling relationship involving Donatello Hamato, Leonardo Hamato, Raphael Hamato, and Michelangelo O'Neil with a_ _**probability of 99.99%** _ _._

"Congratulations," the doctor said warmly. "Sunshine's yours, after all."


	11. Chapter 10

"A freakin' cast," Raph muttered, like he just couldn't keep it to himself. Leo glanced up from the magazine he was flipping through in time to share a mutually disgruntled look with him. Since the hospital pharmacy was crowded, their father had taken Mikey in to fill the prescription while Leo and his brothers were sent to wait in the lobby. It had only been about a quarter hour, but Leo hadn't expected Raph to hold out even  _that_ long.

Donatello leaned out from Raph's other side to encompass them both in his round, earnest eyes.

"You know, I did some reading about New Jersey state laws- and welfare agencies, like Child Protection and Permanency- and adoption is  _hard._ Dad will have to take close to thirty hours of classes and pass a medical exam, among other things. It's a long, expensive process. It won't happen overnight, sometimes it can take  _months_."

And Don looked a lot better than he had earlier this morning, but there were still lines of worry in his face that made him look older than he had any right to. So Leo put his own worries on a shelf, and tried to make it better.

"It doesn't matter, Donnie, father will do whatever it takes," he said reassuringly, and managed to sound confident even though he felt wildly out of his depth. It was worth it when Don smiled.

 _He has to,_ Leo didn't add aloud, mind working furiously.  _Those people can't have Mikey back,_ ever.  _They hurt him, and they could do it again, and he is_ not _going to be_ abused _, not_ ever.

As lost in thought as he was, Leo didn't notice Mikey was there until he was suddenly  _right there;_ sitting on the edge of the table in front of the brothers' sofa bench with his casted arm in his lap and a folded piece of paper in the opposite hand. Leo blinked at him, and felt himself smile involuntarily, just at the way Mikey sat there looking at them with his head tilted to one side like a bird.

"Hey," the oldest Hamato greeted warmly, "done already?"

"Uh- no, sensei's still getting the medicine, he said I could go ahead and wait with you guys," Mikey replied. There was something off about the expressive kid with such a dazed look on his face, but his eyes were bright with something curious instead of something sad, so Leo didn't let himself worry. But then Mikey went on to ask, "Hey, Donnie, what's the highest a DNA match can go?" and Leo let himself worry a little.

Raph was the first to recover, his voice darting out sharply. "No matter what those results say when we get 'em back, you're still family. You know that, right?"

And it only took Mikey a second to grin at him- still curious and still sort of wondering, but pleased, too- before his eyes swung back to Donatello.

Taking the hint, Don straightened from his slouch, looking thoughtful- probably less trying to think  _of_ the answer, and more trying to think of a way to assemble it in layman's terms for the sake of non-genius company- and replied a moment later.

"In the case of a match, the highest probability would be 99.99%. The only reason it's not a solid 100% is because the test accounts for the possibility that the matching results only match by sheer chance. But the odds of that happening in a DNA test are one in about a hundred and thirteen  _billion,_  according to the FBI."

"Oh." Mikey blinked at him, then down at his hands. It was his turn to look thoughtful, turning the paper over and over in his fingers as he processed the new information, and Leo didn't even have a full minute to wonder what was going on in that blond head of his when Mikey said, "So... if it came back, and it said 99%, I'd be your- brother, your Michelangelo. For  _sure._  Right?"

"For sure," Don confirmed, and at the same time Raph was uncrossing his arms and leaning forward, brow furrowed in quiet concern; when he reached out to cup one side of Mikey's face, Mikey leaned into his hand.

"Hey... you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm... Are  _you_ okay? With it? With me, I mean. Being- him. Yours."

Leo kept his sinking heart a secret. Mikey- happy Mikey, with those blue eyes and that ridiculous smile-  _still_ couldn't wrap his mind around the idea of being wanted. No matter how much they loved him, it would take longer than two months to fix fifteen years.

Leo couldn't afford to keep forgetting that.

"Mikey, of course we are," Donnie said right away. He sounded more confused than anything at this point, and as Leo watched, his eyes dropped from Mikey's face to the paper in his hand.

"But are you  _sure?"_ Mikey stressed uncertainly. "Are you sure you won't get sick of having me around all the time? I mean, I'll be around  _all_ the time, you know? Like, 24/7."

Scowling without heat, Raph gave Mikey's head where he still held it a little shake."Hey, spazz,  _you're_  the one who always goes home when you're supposed to,  _we're_ the ones who always ask you to stay. We  _wanna_ be stuck with you 24/7. That's kind of our goal here."

Mikey looked down, then away, and Raph cut a quick glance at Leo as he let Mikey go; the stark green of his eyes was worried. Mikey only believed in happy endings where he saw them in movies and comic books, and it was a struggle for him to come to terms with the possibility of one now.

He was clutching the paper too tightly, creasing it deeply down the middle, and Don reached over to cover Mikey's hand with one of his.

"Can I see this?" he asked gently, and Mikey shook his head, blinking through a suspicious brightness in his eyes. Undeterred, Donatello scooted to the edge of the bench and leaned closer. "Please, Mikey? I want to see it."

"But- what if it's- "

"Your DNA was tested against  _three_ other samples. There is absolutely no way the results are wrong," Don said, uncharacteristically patient as he waited for Mikey's blue eyes to swing back up and meet his. Next to him, Raph's whole body went tense, and Leo's heart started racing.

 _Results?_ he wondered slowly, eyes drifting to the paper hidden under his little brothers' hands. "But we weren't supposed to get them back for two more days!"

"That's what the doctor talked to sensei about," Mikey said, his voice a tiny, careful thing. "And that's why sensei sent you guys ahead, so he could talk to me. He said I could decide when to tell you guys, 'cause I should get to have a say about it, since it's so important." Mikey pulled his hand away, and clumsily unfolded the letter, looking like he wanted to sink into the ground and disappear as he handed it over. "But... it's important to you, too. So..."

The  _Conclusion_ statement near the bottom drew Leo's eyes like a magnet, past the blocks of texts and numbered charts, and he read it four times before he could pull his gaze up and away again.

_99.99%. He's really ours._

There hadn't been even a shadow of doubt, so why was the relief so  _overwhelming?_ Stupidly, Leo thought he could cry- he wouldn't, but he  _could_. Instead he leaned forward and reached out, and asked- because it was  _so important,_ because "okay" wasn't enough _-_ "Are you  _happy_ with this?"

Mikey didn't have quite the same reservations about crying that Leonardo did, from the way his eyes were filling up. He rubbed his arm, hitched on a smile, and so help him, Leo would  _shake_ Mikey if he tried to shrug off the question with some meaningless platitude; this was too serious for him to make a joke out of,  _please, Mikey, don't joke this time._

"To be honest," Mikey began, spreading his hands like a magician showing all his cards, like they could take whatever he said to be funny or serious, like he was trying to please a crowd, "I've wanted to be your little brother since the night I met all of you. That first time I came over to your house, remember? We had pizza, and watched tons of dumb anime, and I- that was so  _fun._ I'd never had that much fun."

Raph and Donnie were listening, too; paying rapt attention if their stonelike stillness on Leo's side was any indication. Mikey's eyes stuttered away from theirs for a second, then came back again bravely.

"Then you told me- that you had a little brother, already, and that he died, and I thought it was so  _wrong_ of me to want to be him. But I still did. But it was  _wrong_. But then- my name was his name, and all this stuff happened, and- I dunno if it's right, or wrong, but you guys seemed so sure and sensei looked so happy, and I..."

His smile looked like it hurt, the brightness in his eyes refusing to fall. He shrugged one shoulder in a brief moment of something like self-preservation- as long as  _he_ pretended not to care, it wouldn't hurt if  _they_ didn't- and said, "I still  _wished_ I was your Michelangelo. I thought, if I was him- if I had an awesome dad like sensei, and three cool big brothers like you guys- I'd finally be  _happy_."

And with that, Leo had to hold him. _  
_

He stood up and leaned over, hugging Mikey where he sat on the table with his arms wrapped around Mikey's head and thin shoulders. He felt it when Raph's arms snuck around the both of them, when Donnie reached out to take Mikey's hand.

 _They probably won't call me out on it,_ Leo thought vaguely, when his eyes started to burn. He buried his face against those soft blond curls just to be on the safe side, pulled Mikey even closer, and thought his heart must have been breaking under the weight of loving someone so much.

Raph muttered something that made Mikey laugh, muffled and wet but so typically  _Mikey_ that it warmed Leo to his bones. When he felt a hand in his hair, Leo glanced up and over into his father's amber eyes.

"Let's all go home," Master Yoshi said gently. Leo nodded, but he didn't move to leave or let go. He couldn't, not just yet. Not when Mikey was nuzzling into a more comfortable spot, and Donnie's head tipped over to rest on Leo's shoulder, and Raphael's arm was warm around his waist.

He couldn't.

His father carded a hand through his hair, expression soft, and seemed to understand.


	12. Chapter 11

It was the most surreal day of Donatello's life to date.

Sensei allowed them to take the pizza into the dojo, and took down the photo album from the top shelf of the shrine. He opened the front cover of the large book and set it that way in Mikey's lap, and Mikey didn't waste time in flipping to the first page.

Don hadn't seen the album in years. He couldn't remember the last time he'd asked to see it, but he most have been really young; running his fingers over those old pictures of a beautiful and unfamiliar face that were preserved like pressed flower petals under the protective plastic sleeves. Donnie never knew his mother, and didn't grow up missing her the way he had grown up missing the baby brother he could sometimes still feel.

The baby brother that sat next to him, now. Mikey moved through the pages with wide, absorbant blue eyes, soaking up the snapshots of a life that he should have shared the way parched earth soaked up rain.

Don didn't know what to do.

He wanted to hold Mikey without ever letting him go, for starters. Because Mikey was his  _friend_ , and his friend's fingers were beginning to tremble on the corner of each new page. Because Mikey was his  _baby brother_ , and Donnie had felt his absence every day of his life, like a hole in the heart, or a misplaced lung.

And Don just... wanted to hold him.

The shock had been overwhelming that rainy night in the kitchen, when the truth had manifested itself in the form of a worn out patch in Mikey's jacket, and a name- but the staggering surprise of that bombshell miracle was long gone by the time the DNA test results came back, faded into bewildered, electric  _awe._

It was a struggle of polar opposites, a war in his autonomic nervous system between happiness and helplessness, and Don didn't know what to do.

"Is this her?" Mikey asked suddenly, and he didn't get everyone's attention with the question because he'd had it the whole time. His fingers were hovering over a picture on the page, and sensei leaned over him to see.

"Ah, yes. That is your mother."

Donnie watched a bright smile spill across Mikey's face like a shant of sunlight, and the kid scooted the book up a little closer, propping it up against his cast like the fiberglass was some sort of book stand. Raph gave him a disgruntled look that Mikey didn't catch.

"She's so pretty! What's her name?"

"Sunday, but most who knew her called her Sunny," Yoshi replied fondly. As a kid, Donnie remembered shadows of grief that would cling to his father's eyes when he spoke about her, but now they were gone. "I daresay the nickname suited her personality. She was vibrant, and full of laughter."

 _Like someone else we know,_  Don thought, as Leo nudged Mikey's shoulder with a grin. "You look just like her, Mikey."

"I do?" Mikey looked back at the picture under his fingers, eyes narrowing in focus. Raph reached over to ruffle his mop of curls.

"You got all that hair from mom, that's for sure. And your freckles, too."

"Me and Leo both got her blue eyes!" he added, delighted by the idea. "Only, hers are  _really_ round, woah."

"Our eyes are more almond-shaped because father's Japanese," Donatello said, joining them in their huddled study of the decades-old photograph. With a start, Don remembered all at once how beautiful their mother had been. And Leo and Raphael had it right- sunkissed Michelangelo was every inch Sunny's child. "Wow, you really  _do_ look like her, Mikey."

Mikey looked inordinately pleased, like it was a kind compliment instead of a matter of inheritance, and leaned against him when Master Yoshi put a hand on his head. But a minute later some of the glee left his face as he studied the woman in the picture, uncertainty taking its place for a moment that trembled. There was a question in his eyes, stark and plain enough as though he'd asked it out loud already, and Yoshi petted his hair with a sort of doting patience.

"There are no taboo questions, Michelangelo," the man said, and Mikey chuckled, his tone a complicated cocktail of gratitude and reluctance.

"Um... What happened to her?"

"She died when we were born, Mikey," Leo said gently. They had long since made peace with it, but Mikey must have dreamed about her his whole life. Sure enough, a sort of drooping sadness filled his eyes, and when he ducked his head Raph reached over within the same second to cup his chin and tilt it right back up.

"Hey, she loved you. She loved all of us."

"You think?" Mikey asked softly, honest with hope where he wasn't with pain, and the whole family nodded with absolute certainty. "But how do you know? She isn't here to tell us."

Leo put an arm around him, with one of those storyteller smiles that Donnie hadn't seen since the last time he'd gone to Leo after a nightmare, and Leo had read aloud from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea until Don's eyelids were drooping. Leonardo was a big brother before he was anything else, and he was good at it.

"When mom was pregnant with us," he said, in the tone of voice some people used to say "once upon a time," "she was really sick. She had cancer, and the doctors wanted her to start chemotherapy, but she wouldn't do it."

Mikey's eyes were round, and the fingers of his good hand tightened in the sleeve of Yoshi's robe. He'd been waiting for this story since he was old enough to think for himself, and it showed in the enraptured stillness of his thin body. "Why not?"

"There was a very real possibility that the radiation might have hurt you, and she wouldn't allow it." Sensei was the one who answered, addressing all four of them instead of just their found sibling. And with Mikey in the audience, the story carried a new sense of gravity; Don was listening as intently as his brothers, even though he knew the ending of this narrative as well as he knew his own name by now. "When she went into labor she was very weak, and despite their very best the doctors weren't able to stop her bleeding when the hemorrhaging started."

There was something awful in Mikey's face that prompted Don to lean over immediately and flip ahead a few pages, skipping years of family history to the only picture they had of Michelangelo. It was taken the day they were born, and the four of them were just tiny lumps, swaddled in colored blankets and laying together in a short row in a wheeled bassinet. Supporting arms on one side of Sunny belonged to a nurse, and her head was tipped against Yoshi's as she leaned over the side of her hospital bed, tired and so pretty and touching the smallest of her four babies on the cheek with just the tip of her finger.

"That's you," Donnie said, even though Mikey probably recognized the baby blanket. He was staring at the photo, and resented it a little bit for all it represented. "Father says right after this picture was taken, they rushed you away to the NICU, and you never came back."

"Well, you're wrong about one thing, smartie-pants."

Mikey's voice brought Donatello back to the present with a start, and he glanced at his younger brother quickly. Mikey was tracing the photo with gossamer fingers, and abruptly Donnie felt terrible. This was supposed to be a good thing for Mikey, and here Don was getting bitter about a past they couldn't change. Somehow, though, even though Mikey looked a little sad, and a little overwhelmed, he looked mostly- relieved. There was a warmth in his face that Donnie couldn't understand.

"It's... I always thought she didn't want me," Mikey said, rubbing his face even though he hadn't cried, maybe to hide the smile threatening to split his face in two. "But she loved me. And so did- so do you guys. It's better than- than I ever could have- "

Leo's smile was about as wide as Mikey's, and Raphael was looking suspiciously misty-eyed. Yoshi wrapped his arms around Mikey's shoulders, brown eyes warming when Mikey leaned back into the embrace, and said, "You take after your mother in more than just appearances. Now that I know the truth, it's impossible not to see her in you."

"Oh, is that- is that okay?"

"My son," Yoshi replied at once, "it is  _wonderful."_

Mikey's grin bloomed right back, and Donnie reached for him with both arms; deciding  _to heck with it,_ and holding him after all, like he'd wanted to all along. His father simply enveloped him into the embrace as well, and Don's heart hurt in a really good way when Mikey pushed the photo album aside to hug him instead.

It was only a moment or so later that Mikey broke the comfortable silence.

"Hey D, don't you wanna hear what you were wrong about?" he piped up. It caused a collective, amused sigh to ripple through the room; Raph muttered,  _"I_  sure do," and Don smiled.

"Yeah, okay. What was I wrong about?"

"You said I never came back," Michelangelo told him, so close Donnie could feel his heart beating, could feel it when he smiled against Donnie's shoulder, when his arm tightened around Donnie's waist. "But I did."


	13. Chapter 12

Mikey's second phone call to Mrs. O'Neil, made on their way home from getting his arm wrapped up at the hospital, sent her straight back to NYC. Mikey said she practically pulled a U-ey over the state line. She and Master Yoshi juggled phone calls back and forth for the next hour, their father answering all manner of questions about his family, Mikey, and the Campbells; after, all he could tell his sons with certainty was that she had sworn- with no small degree of fierce conviction- that she would take care of everything.

"You  _gotta_ be her favorite," Raph told Mikey, and the shorter blond's grin was shameless.

"Kinda am."

So her visit was pushed back a couple days, and since they were expressly forbidden to have anything to do with the Campbells- up to and including going back for Mikey's stuff, a rule that Yoshi directed somewhat pointedly at Raph in particular- the Hamato clan pretty much had to just... wait.

Which sucked, since they'd done nothing  _but_  wait, and it was beginning to grind on Raph's nerves. Confronting Mikey's ex-foster family would be a  _way_  better use of time than just sitting around. But when he said as much, Leo gave him a dry look, and Don said, "You just want to punch Mr. Campbell."

Well... yeah, there was also that.

Yoshi reminded Mikey to take his first dose of pain pills right after dinner, and they knocked him out flat. Donnie mentioned setting up a guest room, but Mikey  _wasn't_ a guest, and Raph wasn't gonna treat him like one. No one spoke up when he ignored the suggestion, scooping Mikey up and making straight for the couch instead.

"What a lightweight," Raph grumbled, hefting Mikey up a little closer. Bridal style was the only way to go, so his casted arm was cradled gently instead of slung around. Mikey didn't so much as stir, even when Raph laid him out on the sofa, and the older blond stood back for a moment with his arms crossed. "Jeez, kid, what do you weigh? Ninety pounds?"

Leo brought over a quilt as Raph was propping Mikey's arm up with a throw pillow, and surprised Raph by handing it over instead of covering Mikey with it himself. When Raph gave him a sidelong look, Leo just smiled crookedly and left Raph to it.

"Somethin's in the water," Raph muttered, draping the blanket over Mikey carefully and tugging at it until it sat just right. It took longer than it should have, and one he was finished Raph retreated to his room for the rest of the day. If he got  _one more_ annoying,  _knowing_ look from his dad or his brothers, they were all gonna officially be on his nerves.

* * *

"Raph, scoot over."

Raph hadn't so much as twitched when the door to his room opened, but the sudden voice next to his bed had him moving, shifting over to one side. Weight dipped the mattress beside him, and chains rattled briefly before something settled on the nightstand with a soft thunk.

After some worming around to get under the blanket, and then some additional squirming to get comfortable, a curly head finally came to rest on the free end of the pillow and Raphael opened his eyes.

Round blue ones blinked owlishly back from a handful of inches away, and Raph said, "What, couch not good enough for you?"

"No it was okay," Mikey replied, voice clear as crystal and still somehow soft, like a little kid whispering at naptime. "But I woke up and couldn't fall back asleep."

Raph didn't answer, studying him in the dim of the room. For quadruplets, the four of them certainly weren't built the same- Raph was stockier than Leo, Leo was shorter than Donnie, but Mikey was...  _small._ Not so much in inches or pounds- though there was that too- but more because, even though his personality was big and loud enough to fill a room, Mikey existed in this little pocket of space that didn't take up any room at all.

Like right then- Raph's bed was a double, and even with Mikey sharing it didn't feel crowded at all. He knew it was because he and his brothers were all born too early, and Mikey was born too weak, but that didn't feel like the  _only_ reason.

_He grew up bein' with people who didn't want him. He's used to makin' himself small._

_Screw that._

After tugging the comforter up to Mikey's shoulders, Raph draped a heavy arm over him. They were probably years too old to share a bed, but Raph didn't care, and he would  _fight_ anyone who might take issue with their casual displays of affection in the future.

Mikey lived his  _whole life_  without his family, without their hair ruffles and headlocks, and Raph wasn't a genius like Don was but he knew that for a kid as-  _demonstrative_ and caring as Mikey was, growing up without them to love and be loved by must have been really hard.

_I don't care if I'm sixteen or sixty, if this little dope comes over for a hug- even if he's been dancin' on my last nerve for a week straight, I don't care, he's gettin' the damn hug._

Raph's arm around him made Mikey giggle like a ghost, moving a hand to cover his mouth like there was any chance he might be loud enough to wake up the rest of their family. The sound of it was enough to ease the ache in Raph's chest into something that almost didn't hurt at all.

"How you feelin', by the way?" he asked, because he couldn't ignore the orange cast sprawled on the sheets between them. "Your arm feel okay?"

His little brother made a dismissive noise in his throat that made Raph want to pinch him, and smiled sideways. "I'm good. But I'm wide awake now!"

"Them's the breaks when you're out before six."

"I guess. Are you sleepy?"

"Nah."

"Awesome, cause I wanna tell you something." Mikey propped himself up on an elbow, ignoring the sour look Raph gave him for using his bad arm, and gave his older brother a Serious Look, smile fading around the edges. "I never got to say thanks. For, y'know, that day we met. If you hadn't made friends with me, I might never have found you guys!"

Reaching over, Raph shoved that freckled face against the pillow. Refused to let the words penetrate and stick deep the way they wanted to- because then he'd have to think about how close they'd come to spending the whole future apart, and he never wanted to think about that.

"Don't be an idiot. We would have found you. If you wanna thank someone for  _that_ , thank my probation officer for giving me community service at the rec center."

Mikey muffled something and Raph let him up, dropping his arm around Mikey's shoulders again. Freed, Mikey repeated, "Hey, I never asked- why  _did_ you have community service?"

"You never  _asked_ 'cause it never occured to you to  _care_ ," Raph said, fond and exasperated in equal measures. "I swear, you'd make friends with anybody who smiled at you real nice. I'm gonna have a full time job keepin' an eye on you." Mikey stuck his tongue out and Raph grinned, moving his eyes to the ceiling he couldn't quite see in the dark.

"As for the community service... I used to get myself in trouble a lot. I had some friends I thought were friends, and we- I dunno, tagged churches and set off car alarms. Just vandalism, stupid stuff, there was never a point to it, and no one ever got hurt. Until one day they decided they want to take it farther, and I said no. So they, heh, _excommunicated_ me."

"That sounds bad," Mikey said, and Raph snorted.

"Let's just say I learned my lesson. You gotta know who your real friends are, and who's just gonna use you as a means to an end."

"How come you needed them in the first place?" When Raph glanced over the younger of the two flushed, and picked at the fiberglass of his cast. "I mean- cause you have a really cool family, and- " Promptly, Raphael flicked him on the forehead, and Mikey took the hint; rubbing his brow, he grinned shyly and amended,  _"We_ have a really cool family. And there's no  _way_ those 'friends' were better than Leo, Don and sensei. And you're not the kinda dude that lets people use him for anything. So why did you?"

"'Cause it was hard, sometimes. Just bein' home, bein' together," Raph said, simply enough. "There was a gapin' hole in our family, like a great big pit in the floor, and every single day we were just edgin' around it, tryin' not to fall in." Having lived that way for fifteen years, it wasn't hard to put the feeling to words. "We all had somethin' we buried ourselves in, but Leo and Donnie made themselves  _better_ for it. Don's a genius- he taught himself everything he knows- and Leo's practically the next Bruce Lee."

It was easy to tell Michelangelo, who listened attentively from his side of the bed with wide, guileless eyes. Raph could never get the words out around sensei, could  _never_ admit it to Leo and Don, but-

"Next to them, I never felt... necessary. Leo always had the monopoly on bein' the responsible big brother, and Donnie's smarter than both of us, he didn't need much looking after. But with the gang... it, I dunno, it felt better. They didn't expect anything out of me. They didn't know I had part of me missin', they didn't care my family was sorta messed up. It was easier."

Mikey only nodded once, slowly, with something in his face that was beginning to look heavy and sad, and way too understanding for Raph's liking- like he had a big pit in his life, too, except he'd actually fallen in and drowned.

Tightening his grip, Raph hurried on, "But, like I said, I learned my lesson. I'm not goin' anywhere without my family ever again, and neither are you."

There was more to the story than that, but he wouldn't tell Mikey that the lesson he learned came with a three night stay in the hospital. He wouldn't tell Mikey about waking up to the quiet beeping of a heart rate monitor, and a gentle hand in his hair, and sensei looking tired and heartbroken. He wouldn't say how Donnie had cried in that awful, silent way he had, how he held onto Raph's arm for hours like he'd fall forever if he let go; or how Leo couldn't meet Raph's eyes  _once_ until the bruises healed- how he  _still_  hated himself for letting Raph get hurt, and Raph had no clue how to make him  _stop_.

Mikey didn't need to hear any of that. He didn't need to hear how Raph had messed up everything, hurt everyone- not when he was only tentatively at home with them in the way they wanted him to be, only just learning how to trust them and carrying those nunchucks with him even to bed because he  _didn't_ quite yet.

Raph brought his hand up to ruffle Mikey's hair, maybe more gently than usual, and decided all Mikey needed to hear was, "That's a promise, little brother."

Judging from the slow, bright smile he got in return, Raph decided right.


	14. Chapter 13

_"My dear Yoshi."_

The master closed his eyes for a moment, and his tight grip on the phone loosened. Shen's voice was like a balm on his soul, the way it always had been, and he never realized how troubled his heart was until she soothed it again with a handful of calm and gentle words.

_"I can't believe... You are sure it is him?"_

"I would not have called otherwise," he replied, and it was true. Yoshi had put off telling the rest of the family until he was  _certain_ ; until the DNA test results had come back, and Mrs. O'Neil managed to hunt the truth down like a hungry stoat. After a courtroom appearance several days ago and a formidable amount of paperwork, Michelangelo was home to stay. And only then did Yoshi have the strength to pick up the phone- to move forward.

_"And the poor child, how is he? Yoshi?"_

It  _would_ be her first question, and it made Yoshi smile. "He is fine. More than fine. A few days ago, we got a letter from the courthouse stating the change of name papers we filed had been processed, and I don't think I've seen anyone happier to be called a Hamato than he was."

Shen was silent on the other end of the line, probably sitting frozen and still and clutching the phone in both hands, and Yoshi waited patiently for her to gather her thoughts.

When she did, she asked softly,  _"And what... what is he like?"_

"He is like his mother," Yoshi said without hesitating. "Every bit like her, dear Shen. The way she had of dancing through the days, of bringing life to still and colorless things, and bringing joy... Life has not been kind to him, or fair, but Michelangelo has a smile like the sun."

When she laughed, Yoshi could hear her tears as clearly as if he was there to watch them fall. Shen had been dear friends with Sunday, and even Saki had fallen for Sunday's cheer and charm. Losing her was a test of strength that Yoshi might have failed, had he not had three sons to care for and the support of his brother and sister-in-law, as far away as they were.

 _"All those years ago, I wanted nothing but for you to move back to Tokyo,"_ she said, with the footprint of a smile in her voice.  _"I wanted you to come home to us with your boys. Your home is beautiful, but there are echoes of her in its walls, and I... I did not want to lose you to grief. I did not want the children to know it of you, before they knew your love. I told you this many times, and still I never could convince you. And now, I'm glad for your stubbornness, my dear. You remained, and it brought your son home to you."_

His sister was like a still lake, with smooth and untroubled waters. Casting stones at its surface only caused temporary ripples that fanned wide and faded away, leaving no scar. Her tranquility was its own soothing presence even from the other side of the world, and after the hurricane of the last few weeks Yoshi wished she was there, so he might hold her.

"Raphael was the one who brought Michelangelo home to me; though he would not have had the chance, had we moved back to Japan," he said, when he was sure his voice wouldn't waver. "You are partly right."

Shen made a noise somewhere between a chuckle and a sigh.  _"Don't tease me, Yoshi. I'm still reeling from this news! Speaking of Raphael- how are the boys taking it? Was it a terrible shock?"_

"Initially. But I think they realized the truth in their hearts long before the facts came to light. You've never seen Leonardo so playful, Donatello so patient, Raphael so gentle as they are with him, even before they knew he was theirs."

 _"I cannot wait to meet him, Yoshi,"_ she said, sincerity ringing in every syllable.  _"I cannot believe... To have been given Michelangelo, after thinking him lost... I never- I could never have thought- "_

She needed a moment to compose herself, and Yoshi crossed the room to the wide window that overlooked the backyard. His boys were setting up a camping tent they'd found in the storage room as it was cleared out, though they didn't seem to be making much progress. It was scattered in pieces across the grass, and the culprits themselves were on the patio, sitting together against the side of the stone fire pit; gathered around the instructions that lay unfolded and spread wide across the flagstone, and eating out of the bag of marshmallows they'd brought outside with the intention to roast after dinner.

They were pink-faced and bright-eyed and laughing, and love burned like fire in Yoshi's heart.

 _"Forgive me,"_ Shen said from the phone at his ear.  _"Yoshi, how- how did this come to be? How was Michelangelo lost to us?"_

"It was simply... a mistake," Yoshi said, and though it was difficult to form the words, it was not as difficult as hearing them for the first time. "An accident. The baby who died on that day belonged to a woman who disappeared from the hospital shortly after she gave birth. All the information she left was false- the son she left behind was well and truely abandoned. He and Michelangelo were born within moments of each other, both rushed to the NICU at almost the same time, and- in all the confusion, of the woman gone missing, and Sunday passing away, Michelangelo was given the wrong ankle I.D." Yoshi turned from the glass pane of the window and sank into an armchair, resting his head in his hand. "I- I am beside myself. I should have realized the baby boy was not mine, I should have- "

 _"Do_ not  _think those things, Hamato Yoshi. How could you possibly have had the state of mind to ask questions given what you lost that day? What reason had you, to suspect?"_ Shen said sharply, in a tone of voice better suited to a thunderstorm.  _"Does Michelangelo blame you? Is he angry?"_

She knew, already; if he was as like his mother as Yoshi told her, then there was no way Michelangelo would even be capable of the things she said. So he replied with a quiet, "No, he isn't," and listened to Shen sigh.

_"Then neither should you be. Though... I daresay Saki will be furious."_

It was true. Saki was ever the overprotective brother, even moreso with the oceans that lay between his  _otouto_ and young nephews. He wasn't home when Yoshi made the call, and he didn't know that he would have the strength to call back another time. "Should I have waited to tell you both together?"

_"Oh, Yoshi, no. He'll understand why you couldn't. I'll tell him all of this myself when he gets home. No, my dear, he'll be angry at the people responsible for this. Will there be charges pressed?"_

"No, there won't be. Though Donatello certainly thought there should," Yoshi said, and Shen made a soft noise of surprise.

_"Gentle Donnie? I would have thought, Raphael- "_

"Raphael is happy as long as Michelangelo is happy. They were friends for some time before the truth came to light, and I don't think the dynamic between them has changed at all. On the other hand, Donatello is... struggling."

 _"It was so hard on him when he was young,"_ she said, understanding now, and Yoshi nodded to himself.  _"It must be difficult to accept that there is no real justice to be had. And Leonardo?"_

"Leonardo..." Yoshi smiled, and glanced out the window again where a sagging tent was beginning to take form, "...has his hands full these days."

 _"I can imagine! Sunday's child and Raphael must make a mischevious pair. It's probably good for Leo, though. He needs more play."_ She paused, and added,  _"If I could ask... why_ aren't  _you pressing charges?"_

"Michelangelo is against it. He said- and I'm quoting- "the person who made the mistake probably doesn't even work there anymore, and anyway, they didn't do it on purpose." He says he doesn't need the hospital's money more than the hospital does, and suing them wouldn't bring those fifteen years back."

 _"Darling boy,"_ she murmured.  _"I really... I really can't wait to meet him, Yoshi. Could we come for a visit soon?"_

"You are always welcome here," Yoshi said at once. "And Michelangelo is becoming more at home with us as time goes on. I gave him a pair of the Hamato  _nunchaku_ to carry some time ago- so he would have a solid thing to hold, to remind him of his family- and yesterday he left them on the table after breakfast. He hurried back for them hours later, but it was a small victory, and Leonardo, Raphael and Donatello shone with joy for the rest of the day."

_"The boys' birthday is at the end of the month. We were going to send their package in the mail, but... Well, I know it's short notice, but maybe we could come for a visit, stay for a week or so."_

Yoshi's heart felt light at the idea of it, of sharing dinners and warm afternoons with them, of introducing Michelangelo to the remaining three of their small clan.

"I would like that very much. And so would he, I think."

The door slid open suddenly, bringing in the breeze and the birdsong and the distant laughter of the yard along with Michelangelo, who remembered to tug it shut behind him as an afterthought. He heaved a content sigh at the cool air-conditioned living room as he turned around, and his smile lit up when he saw Yoshi in the recliner.

"Hi, sensei!" Michelangelo said, bouncing a few steps closer. "I was gonna get some sodas for us, is that okay?"

"That would be fine, my son."

 _"Yoshi, is that him?"_ Shen's voice was just a whisper, and Yoshi beckoned Michelangelo closer before he could caper off.  _"Oh, Yoshi, can I- Would he- ?"_

"I've been telling your Aunt Shen all about you," Yoshi said, with the phone close enough to his mouth still that his sister would be able to hear. She fell silent on the other end of the line, and Michelangelo's eyes grew wide.

"Aunt Shen is the lady in all those pictures with mom! You said they were like sisters. What is she like? Is she nice? Can I talk to her, too? Do you think she'd let me?"

Shen sobbed softly in his ear, a desperately happy sound, and with a warm smile Yoshi passed his youngest child the phone.

"I think she'd like that very much."


	15. Chapter 14

Mikey's bedroom was across the hall from Raphael's. In the past the room was used for storage, but they'd finished clearing it out, cleaning it up and painting the walls just a few days ago. The colorless space was newly filled with all the vibrant shades of summer, yellows and blues and predominantly an eye-smarting "safety orange" that surprised absolutely no one.

The area rug was muted green and soft underfoot like trampled grass, and the double bed- with its wheel-shaped headboard, and candy-colored pillows and plush toys- sat empty.

And Mikey sat in the wide bow window; curled impossibly small with his face turned to the glass, and a calico kitten fast asleep in the crook of his casted arm.

Leonardo's heart was full as he closed the door behind him and crossed the room.

The kitten blinked awake when he sat on the edge of the nook beside them, gold eyes wide and grave in a tiny face. Mikey didn't move but to curl another inch away, fingers digging into the fabric of his sleeve.

"You aren't in trouble," Leo told him gently, keeping his hands clasped between his knees. "Raph's sorry about what he said. Really. Karai's kicking his butt in the dojo, and he's not even putting up a fight."

A minute went by before Mikey raised careful, hooded eyes. Something sharp twisted in Leo's chest at the tear tracks on his face, but he still didn't reach out, not yet, and Mikey wiped them away with his sleeve.

"I... I was just... I didn't mean to... "

"I know. That truck ran the red light. It wasn't your fault."

There had been something in the middle of the street- it looked like a wet rag from where Leo stood- and Mikey had made a beeline for it. He'd been safely within the lines of the cross walk, the Walk sign had been lit, and the thin afternoon traffic had idled patiently behind the limit line, but Leo had kept an eye on him anyway. Behind him Raph had grumbled under his breath, and Don had replied playfully with,  _"Well, one man's trash is another man's treasure."_

"But Raphie's really mad," Mikey said in a small voice. His eyes dropped to the bandage on Leo's arm and filled again. "And- and- "

"It's just a scratch," Leo said calmly, placing a hand over the gauze like he could hide it from view. "And he wasn't mad, Mikey, he was scared."

The sudden shriek of tires had gone straight through Leo's chest like a knife, drowning out Raph and Donnie behind him, and he had moved without thinking; darting off the curb and reaching out to grab Mikey with both hands. Pulling with all the strength he had, Leo had sent the both of them sprawling toward the parking lane, straight into a pile of trash from a loose bin. They had landed with a crunch of glass, but Leo hadn't even felt the sting of it. What he  _had_ felt was the displaced air, the vaccuum that sucked at his jacket as the truck went speeding past, and Mikey, whole and alive and unhurt in his arms.

_"What the hell were you thinking?"_

Back at home, in the kitchen and in the face of Raph's fear as it manifested itself in a wild rage, Mikey had  _flinched_ from him. Sank back into the practiced manner of an unwanted child. Went silent and unrepsonsive, with his rescued cat cradled up beside his heart. Raph's voice had tapered into silence, and Donnie's eyes had gone round in worry, and Mikey had slid away away from Aunt Shen's reaching arms to flee to his room, head bowed and eyes downcast the whole way.

"He didn't sound scared," Mikey mumbled, but he was unthawing, uncurling from the miserable ball he'd tucked himself into and it eased whole pounds of tension off Leo's shoulders. The kitten stood in Mikey's arms and stretched, and turned to climb up the front of his shirt. He helped her along with gentle hands and darted a quick, careful look at Leo. "He's really not mad?"

Leo reached out and pet the kitten behind the ears, watching Mikey watch her purr happily, and then lifted his hand a little farther to smooth a few errant curls out of Mikey's face. Delighted, when his brother leaned into the touch instead of away.

"You know him best," Leo said, with more fondness than he knew he was capable of. "What do you think?" The light came back to Mikey's eyes a moment later, and Leo ruffled his hair before he drew his hand away. "So, what are you going to name her?"

Arms cinching tighter around his tiny rescue, Mikey blinked once. "I dunno. I didn't think... You think sensei will let me keep her?"

"It would be a shame not to." Sensei's voice came from the doorway, and they both glanced over in time to watch him step in. "My sons," he greeted as he crossed the room to them, and Leo knew if he looked that there would a pleased pink in Mikey's face at the plural. It made him smile, and it made their father's eyes go soft.

"You mean it? About the kitty?" Mikey asked hopefully as Yoshi set a hand on his hair. Mikey probably didn't notice anything from the gesture, but Leo did; Yoshi must have heard the story from Don or Aunt Shen, and came to reassure himself that his youngest son was okay. "I've always taken strays home but I've never, ever kept one before. I- oh! I have some money saved up! I could get a litter box and food, and- "

"You needn't worry about that," Master Yoshi interrupted, dispelling the idea before it could take root in Mikey's head.  _Dad's learning fast,_ Leo thought ruefully, leaning against the window pane, while a bright-faced Mikey lifted the kitten for their father to see.  _I wonder if we're spoiling him._

The concept didn't bother him at all.

Aunt Shen came in some time later- bundling Mikey up in her arms without ado and pressing a kiss to his forehead with a gentle  _"I'm glad you feel better, my sunshine,"_ and Leo thought he could get used to a Mikey who thrived in attention the way this Mikey was beginning to.

"I'm going to go drag Raph out of the dojo," Leo said, getting up to give Aunt Shen his seat. "Otherwise he's gonna punish himself into a matching cast, and then he'll be impossible to live with."

Mikey caught his sleeve before he made it very far, and said, "Hey, Leo?"

"Hm?"

"Tell Raphie I wanna sleep in the tent again tonight, so he has to bring his blankets back out."

Leo almost laughed. Giving Raphael the opportunity to cuddle would go a lot farther in convincing him he was forgiven than reassuring words would. Mikey really  _did_ know their hot-tempered brother too well.

"I'll tell him."

"And Leo?"

"Yeah?"

Mikey beamed at him, and let go. "Thanks for saving me."

At that, Aunt Shen leaned over to touch Leonardo's cheek, and Master Yoshi's brown eyes burned with pride.

Leo smiled. There was still a thrum of tension at the reminder of what could have been- Mikey could have been hurt, could have  _died-_  but Leo's arm stung, and the long cut there sat under its bandage as  _proof_. Undeniable, irrefutable proof that Mikey was safe, because Leo did his job, and did it right.

"What are big brothers for?"

* * *

Leo woke up to find that his brothers had shifted closer in the night, and Donatello's head was pillowed on his shoulder. They were all breathing deeply and soundly, and Leo gazed quietly up through the mesh roof of the camping tent. The crickets and katydids were chattering, the night air was cool, and there was a rolling, stretching contentment in his chest that Leo wished he could bottle and put on a shelf.

Don moved, and mumbled something into Leo's shoulder- what sounded like the first line of an old haiku, in sleep-broken Japanese- and it made Leonardo smile.

"The thief left it behind," he paraphrased slowly, softly in translation, "the  _sun_ , at my window."

A soft shift of nylon on his opposite side was the only warning he got before Mikey murmured, "Tha's pretty, Leo..."

 _Looks like both my baby brothers are talkative sleepers,_ Leo thought, with no small amount of warmth. He glanced over, but Mikey's eyes were closed and it sounded like he was still half-dreaming, words tucked away and muffled against Raph's arm where it draped over him like a second blanket. His calico kitten was curled into a ball beside him, her new collar a bright orange against the forest green of the sleeping bag, and at the sound of Mikey's voice she began to purr without waking.

"Left the sun behind... S'stupid of him..."

Leo reached out and smoothed a hand over Mikey's forehead, as gently as he knew how.

"Lucky for us, though," he replied, unheard.


	16. Chapter 15

"Here's the last of it," Donnie said, kicking the front door shut behind him. He passed one of the cardboard boxes over to Leo, the last two from the back of Mrs. O'Neil's Range Rover, and followed him to Mikey's bedroom. "Are we unpacking them now?"

Leo smiled, looking amused, and the shriek of glee from down the hall a second later was answer enough. Mikey took the corner so fast he slid into the wall with a  _thud_ that shook a few picture frames, and made his brothers wince a bit in sympathy. In the few seconds it took him to regain his footing he was compromised, and Don watched as he was seized around the waist and hauled straight off the ground.

"Gotcha!"

Startled yelp morphing into helpless giggles, Mikey started squirming like a snared orange octopus. "Casey! Put me down!"

The older kid grinned back, and only partly obliged him; throwing Mikey over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes rather than setting him back on his feet. Mikey dangled there upside down, and erupted into laughter when Casey spun around a few times.

"This is what you get for not listenin', little dude," Casey said loftily, and Mikey blew a raspberry at him.

"I just wanted to  _help,_ jeeez."

"But you gotta broken wrist, Mikester. Man, you're lucky _I_ caught you and not Raph- dude looked ready to eat your face when he saw you haulin' in boxes."

For some reason that made Mikey giggle again, and when Casey finally caught sight of Leo and Donnie as they came closer, he released one of Mikey's legs to offer a wave. Mikey squeaked as he started to slip, and then saw it for the opportunity it was; kicking the rest of the way free and executing a neat, one-handed flip out of arm's reach.

Don scowled. "Mikey, no gymnastics! You know better!"

"Sorry, D," and he had the good grace to look apologetic for a moment. Then Casey made a grab for him and he took off again, darting around the corner with an urchin grin while Casey swore and thundered after him.

"Get back here, you little mutant!"

Leo rolled his eyes.

"No wonder Mikey got along with Raph so well from the start," he remarked dryly, pushing open Mikey's bedroom door with his foot. "He practically grew up with one."

Donnie followed Leo inside and took in the pile of cardboard boxes at a glance. Mikey had only accumulated enough stuff in his whole to fill less than a dozen of them. Something about that  _bothered_ Donatello. Mikey was the type of guy who seemed like he should have  _too much_ stuff. So much stuff that they'd trip on their way into his room, and nag him about keeping it clean, and sigh when he begged for a new comic book or DVD because didn't he have enough by now?

Mikey was already becoming more comfortable asking and taking, though it was progress best measured in baby steps here and there- a toy for his cat here, pancakes for dinner there. One day they'd reach a point where Mikey would be so spoiled and sheltered and overindulged that he would drive his brothers  _crazy_ , and as Donnie looked around at the bright walls and unpacked boxes he decided he couldn't  _wait_ for that day.

"Come on; we better go track them down before Raph blows a gasket," Leo spoke up suddenly, bringing Don back to the present. His big brother was lingering by the open door, and he was looking around the summer-colored room, too. When his eyes came to settle on Donnie they felt like a warm blanket, and Leo's smile was affectionate. "You know how Raph is about Mikey roughhousing in that cast. And he calls  _me_ a mother-hen."

Donnie smothered a laugh behind his hand, and followed Leo into the hall. They hadn't quite made it to the living room when Mrs. O'Neil called their names from the kitchen, where she and Yoshi had settled at the island a few hours ago with cups of tea.

Renee O'Neil was a tall, imposing woman, with long blond hair and sharp blue eyes; but she always dressed in comfortable sweaters and worn jeans, she was pleasant and agreeable about things like Raph's temper and Donnie's extensive questions, and even though a mean, ugly part of Donnie's heart still wanted to blame her for all the terrible, borderline abusive homes and families Mikey had gone to before finding them, he  _couldn't._

"Hey, you two," Mrs. O'Neil said, stepping under the curtain to meet them with a grin. "Have either of you seen April? I still need to run over to the Campbells' house, and she has the car keys."

"We haven't seen her for a little while," Leo replied, "but we could find her for you."

"Thank you, that would be- "

She was cut off by a crash from somewhere else in the house, and as far away as it sounded it was still _loud._  Though Donnie cringed at the magnitude of the sound, Leo didn't flinch or even really miss a beat.

"Or," he added, dryly, "Donnie could find her for you, and I could go deal with whatever that was."

Donnie took the hint, and hurried off before he became involved in 'whatever that was' in any way. There were times it was  _really good_ not to be the oldest, but Leo always knew what to do.

After a quick check of the dojo and the library, Donatello found April in the backyard. She was sitting on the patio, on one of the cushioned seats curving around the built-in fire pit, holding Mikey's cat in her lap. Donnie started to call out to her, then let his voice wither away when she lifted a hand to rub her eyes.

_She's crying._

He waffled at the sliding door uncertainly. He didn't have a lot of experience with crying girls. Or crying anyones. A cowardly part of him wanted to slink away again and run to find her mother, but instead, impulsively, Donnie found himself stepping outside and shutting the door behind him. The flagstone pavers were pleasantly sun-warmed against his bare feet, and he cleared his throat as he made his way over so she'd hear him coming.

"Hey, um- April? Your mom's looking for you."

When she glanced at him, her eyes were dry but still a little puffy, and the smile she offered was a little faint.

"It's Donatello, right?" April said. "Sorry mom has you running errands already. Could you please tell her I'll be in in a minute?"

Torn between wanting to help, and just leaving well enough alone, Don just sort of stood there dumbly for a long moment. Three months ago, Donnie would have probably done exactly as she asked. Everyone had issues, and everyone's issues weren't really his problem. But then Raph's best friend became their little brother- a little brother who brought an injured pigeon home from the park and named it Pete, who made faces at little kids on the bus to make them laugh, who ran to hold doors for people with too many bags- and Donnie was newly, tentatively discovering a sort of learned and powerful empathy.

Mikey was kind without forethought or parameter, kind by default, to strangers and scared animals and lifeless things like toys or magazines he found on the sidewalk, and he smiled like a force of nature.

And Donnie wanted to be like him, if even just a little bit. Which is what prompted him to blurt, "If you need someone to talk to, I'm- uh, someone. You can talk to."

Smooth, Donatello. April blinked, looking startled, and then- to his sort of confused cocktail of relief and embarrassment- she burst out laughing.

"Oh, my gosh. You look so uncomfortable!"

"The laughter isn't really, uh... helping at all."

She brought it down to a giggle, at least, and patted the cushion next to hers. Donnie sat down, then instantly had to catch a flying bundle of calico when Klunk threw herself at him gracelessly.

"She's a hyper little thing," April commented, and Don snorted. She had no idea. "And, hey, I'm sorry if I worried you. I'm okay! It's just..." She glanced at her hands, then up at him, and he tried to look as encouraging as he could. It must have worked, or at least not failed completely, because she offered a tentative smile and added, "It's just, I've known Mike my entire life. He's lived with me for half of his. And now, suddenly... he's not an orphan. Suddenly he's got a family, and a bunch of big brothers- and your names even match! It's just... a lot, you know?"

Donnie nodded once. Three months ago, he would probably would have shrugged at her; he would have thought her pain was secondhand, at best. But there was real misery in her eyes, and he saw it for what it was- this girl, who knew Mikey since the day he came home from the hospital, loved him like a brother.

"He kept... he kept coming back. Every time those homes mom placed him in didn't work out. And it, it  _took_ something from him every time. The other boys called him names, and some of them wouldn't play with him because he was 'bad luck.' As if Michelangelo was anything but  _good,"_ she added, scathingly, while something tender in Donatello's heart broke and bled a little more for his little brother. He tucked Klunk a little closer against his chest, and April brushed a stray lock of red hair behind her ear. Together they glanced out over the yard; the skates and scooter strewn across the grass they forgot to pick up, the camping tent that was beginning to sag a little. After a moment, April said, "He had me, and Casey. And he made friends with some guys in Harlem,  _good_ friends. I think they'd probably do jailtime for Mike, no questions asked- especially Leatherhead. But he moved around so much, and he had to say goodbye so much, and he never really felt like anything- or anyone, or anyplace- was  _his_."

_Oh, Mikey._

Klunk made a soft sound between a meow and a chirp, and purred against Donnie's fingers as he stroked her head. A tiny, delicate little life that his brother saved.

"Which is why... This place, and you, and Mr. Hamato... " There were tears in her eyes again, and she blinked them away. "He would have been so  _happy._ Here, with you. I just can't stop thinking about that."

* * *

"Done," Donnie said two nights later, lifting his project off the floor for Mikey to see. Mikey was practically glowing with excitement, and Donnie couldn't help but grin as he stood and crossed the room. It took ages to get the wiring right, but it would all be worth it in a few seconds. Setting the lamp on a free spot on Mikey's bookshelf, he glanced back at his brother, stationed by the door. "Ready?"

"Ready!"

"Okay, hit the lights."

Mikey obeyed promptly, throwing the room into darkness, and Donnie turned the lamp on. Mikey's gasp was as good as any prize, as the lamp projected hundreds of stars onto the walls and the ceiling and the floor. He was afraid of the dark, as his brothers had learned in time, and needed either company or a source of light in order to sleep soundly. It made perfect sense in relation to someone like Michelangelo, and Donnie had been working on the star lamp ever since.

He took a step back, hands on his hips. It turned out  _perfectly_.

They both climbed into Mikey's bed, sharing the ridiculously large, pink, cat-shaped body pillow that Casey and April had brought as a birthday gift. Klunk settled near their feet, and Mikey shifted until his head was pillowed on Don's shoulder.

"I can't believe you made me a bunch of stars," he whispered, soft and awed. "This is _so cool_."

"I'm glad you like it," Donnie said. "Want me to show you some constellations?"

Of course he did, and they spent close to an hour before falling asleep pointing out the patterns in the stars Donnie built. He wanted to give Mikey a  _lot,_ and a few hundred stars on the walls of his bedroom were just the beginning.


	17. Epilogue

Donnie had some  _grand_ idea about the four of them going to the same college. Raph told him from the start that it was stupid.

"You can go be an Ivy-Leaguer, and I'll be proud of ya," Raph said right there in the kitchen, ignoring Master Yoshi's x-ray eyes the best he could, "but I'm gonna kick it at community college where I belong."

"I'm not going to an Ivy League school," Don replied, round brown eyes earnest and pleading as he leaned over the island table. "Rutgers University looks really great. And it's close enough we could just make the commute to campus whenever we had classes. We could- you know, we could- "

 _Stay together,_ he didn't finish, but he might as well have. Raph felt his hackles lower, and risked a glance at Mikey; the youngest of the four didn't look bothered either way, following the conversation back and forth like he was watching a tennis match. He didn't have huge plans for the future, if any at all, and it was no mystery why. With his track record of bouncing from foster family to foster family, and with nothing more stable than a group home to fall back on, Mikey probably grew up only ever planning on being spat out of the system the day he turned eighteen, with nothing but the clothes on his back and the escape funds he'd been saving since he was twelve.

Sometimes Raph wondered how it was  _Mikey_ sitting next to him- alligator slippers and all- and not some bitter, apathetic clone with trust issues and a chip on his shoulder instead.

Leo folded his arms on the tabletop and tilted his head to one side.

"You're serious about this? It's just... you talked about Columbia an awful lot when you were younger." Before Don could more than open his mouth, Leo added, "And if you're worried about putting distance between yourself and us, don't. You don't have to settle for less just to accommodate us. We'll still be family even if we're hundreds of miles apart."

Raph couldn't help shifting to press his arm against Mikey's, Leo's words notwithstanding. Miles apart wasn't gonna fly.

"It's  _not that._ I'm not  _settling for less."_ Don's eyes went narrow and flinty, like he'd really dig in his heels for a fight over dinner. "As if my brothers could ever be the  _lesser option_. I love you, and I want to go to the same college as you. And I won't argue that, Leo."

Which was how Raph found himself swapping Auto III for Japanese I. They needed two years of foreign language if they wanted to get into Rutgers- Donnie totally roped them in, thanks to those stupid huge little-brother eyes of his- and even though their father taught them the basics of his mother tongue while they were growing up, Mikey missed all those lessons and Raph never really cared to learn. So while Don and Leo both opted for Italian, Mikey and Raph were taking Japanese together.

At least they managed to get the same period. Mikey was in the desk in front of Raph's, in an eye-smarting pink and yellow hoodie, cuffed jeans and Batman Chucks, a technicolor _disaster_ , and probably the only thing that could possibly make the class bearable. "I'm a pro at starting at new schools," is what he'd said when Master Yoshi wished them all a good first day back, and true to his word, there wasn't a hint of nerves about him- just that wide, impish smile as he glanced back at Raph that it took his brothers all summer to earn.

Seeing it, a glow of something fierce and fond wrapped around Raphael's heart and _squeezed._

"That cat backpack is a crime against nature," he said suddenly, just to watch Mikey gasp and looked scandalized.

"Crime against- it's  _adorable._ It even has ears, Raph. Ears!"

Raph might have said something else, but at about that moment their homeroom teacher was stepping inside the room and closing the door behind her with a smile.

"Hello, class," she said, voice accented and very clear. "Welcome to a new school year! I'm Ms. Sato. Now, before I pass out the class syllabus, I'd like the chance to get to know you all- " a few preemptive groans caused her to smile indulgently and continue, "so when I call your name, I ask that you please come up and introduce yourself. Or, if anyone would like to go first- "

Mikey's hand shot up, and Raph rolled his eyes. Of  _course._

"Oh, wonderful," she said, looking pleased. "Go ahead."

Flashing a grin, Mikey hopped out of his chair and made his way to the front of the class. Once his back was to the whiteboard and he was the target of more than a dozen pairs of eyes, he announced, "I'm Michelangelo Hamato- the cute one." Raph snorted before he could help it, and buried the lower half of his face behind his hand.  _Hell, don't_ encourage _him._  "I'm sixteen, and I love pizza, ice cream, and kittens. But you know, come to think of it, a kitten _made_ of ice cream would be- "

"Wait, did you say Hamato?" someone piped up from the back of the class. "Are you related to the Hamato triplets that go here?"

"Quadruplets," Mikey corrected cheerfully, without missing a beat. "And I sure am! They're my bros. I was living with some family in Manhattan, but I moved home this year. And if you're wondering why they never talked about me before, wonder no more. The truth is, I used to be a secret agent. Practically James Bond, you know? But now that I've retired from my life of espionage, it's safe for me to kick it with them here in Jersey. Which is great, cause they're awesome."

Raph felt almost sick with how much he cared about that stupid, bright, scrawny, steadfast little kid- standing in front of a bunch of strangers and spinning a silly, falsified version of a really sad, shitty story all for the sake of clearing the air and making them laugh.

 _My brother,_ he thought fiercely.

Ms. Sato stopped Mikey with a hand on his arm before he could go any farther, looking amused despite herself and raising her voice a little to talk over the laughter.

"Well, I'm glad you were able to join us, former agent Hamato. You've definitely gotten us off to a colorful start. And I have to say- Michelangelo is an unusual name, but it really suits you."

"You think so? I do, too!"

His eyes were big and blue and delighted, and that warm feeling like a fist around Raph's heart got even stronger when those eyes flicked over to meet his dead-on.

The two of them shared a grin, and Michelangelo added, "But if you want, you can call me Mikey."


End file.
